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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 
BULLETIN 156 


THE IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 
AN OFFSHOOT OF THE 
CALUMET DANCE 


By 
William N. Fenton 
with 
AN ANALYSIS OF 
THE IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 
By 
Gertrude Prokosch Kurath 


UNITED STATES 
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
WASHINGTON : 1953 


For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office 
Washington 25,D.C. - Price $1.50 (paper) 


LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL 


SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 
Bureau OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY, 
Washington, D. C., Dec. 21, 1961. 


Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith a manuscript entitled 
“The Iroquois Eagle Dance, an Offshoot of the Calumet Dance,” by 
William N. Fenton, with “An Analysis of the Iroquois Eagle Dance 
and Songs,” by Gertrude Prokosch Kurath, and to recommend that 
it be published as a bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology. 

Very respectfully yours, 
M. W. Sriruine, Director. 

Dr. ALEXANDER WETMORE, 

Secretary, Smithsonian Institution. 
Ir 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
PEOUUGWOME eerie oe tates ee Sook ee ene meee he Sst, 1 
He PRODIOMIA = 2-ee o o de ees Ba eek oe, 5 
PHOREUG HOLE: nom ook ooh aca Colona mee eee tte & 12 
The Seneca Eagle Dance at Coldspring on Allegheny River_.......-___- 13 
Asummer meeting, with emphasis on the ritual__.._..._____-_-____ 13 
Preliminary..-_- . steno esate satteee hp eg See etal: o 15 
Thanksgiving to all the spirit-forces__............._....__-_-_- 15 
Tobacco prayer to the Dew EHagle_ =. 222..2-2-L---2-.iL-_---- 15 
The vtual.. Ak =k ope he sere tO te aitat2 on -8e 16 
SUNG PCASb. ose ei is oe eee ao teay fas. 20 
The anniversary celebration of Resting-sky’s cure._.._-._..__...._-- 21 
Mhanksgiyine. o) ne hae en erases hae = DISSES BoEHEHL tee een as 24 
Webscco invocstionass Via 50~ 1h ond -eeeieee eet SSeS lk. 24 
Assignment of roles and paraphernalia. __.___........-------- 24 
Miho wiGWal 2 of set te oe Oi Se eee ie abet forte Lott Ben 24 
he distribution. of the feast... s0-..1t ated edt 96 ee 29 
Later celebrations at, Allegany. 2.26.6 oc pe tee te ln 31 
RDG ARP Re ee a ES tenia 37 
The participating personalities at Coldspring__..__._...-.-.-.------ 38 
The Eagle Dance as a vehicle for personality expression._______ 38 
Case 1. Wood-eater, an elderly man of the Bear Clan___._____- 40 
Case 2. Corn-husker, a middle-aged commoner of the Hawk Clan_ 43 

Case 3. Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, Guardian of the Good Message 
Po ne err Cla oho oo et maget See. 45 

Case 4. Snorer, a Faith-keeper of the Hawk Clan, a conscientious 
Obiecters aS ee ee ot et eth ns ee eee) opt. 46 

Case 5. Hemlocks-lying-down, a so-called ‘‘Cayuga” of the 
SIT hae Cy GC; Ei; SOR Smee, a ae ne Ly SEER OS, OOO, | Soe 49 
Case 6. Earth-hiller, Matron of the Wolf Clan._.____.________ 53 
Ramm@en ts no pcs Soi fe ese ha ht 2 ie Bauer het fs 54 
The Seneca Eagle Dance at Tonawanda__._.--___-_-------__------__- 54 
he ceremony 22. Sec ot ale eed ene: wee tts UE... 54 
Membership .noveo lott ect pg loeaere erect wel eepance ton 56 
Setting the bundle up before a meeting place___..____---_-___- 57 
Pi amiceivine. 26 43... Sele Ch eh tet fob nc epee 58 
Anmouncement.2 of 2) Soe aoe . See be Be SE emir FE 58 
Tabacco invocation=culyec3)2ie JY fa ee Se Poe he eed 5 59 
Distribution. of tiny pieces of meat.__._ 22-22 22sseeu2-2 60 
Assignment of roles and presentation of paraphernalia___._____-_ 60 
kb tO LAT 2h Ane ee ce er oo nee Feet aS Pees 60 
The-distribution of the feast... 2. 26nd Se tite 62 
EN eye ee a a oe ey eee ee Oe, neem ee 67 
ie Onowadage Condor Dante. 2)... sect coed eet ortecdt ceteneeehs 68 
LOTTE) Se URE Cs Se SS ey We Pare a Dee Ty OVS ean, Yuan 69 
J ot a ee i a See ae eg aL) ae a eee s Cee Pee came: 70 
eR bOI D tS REN oe eee 71 
DAE 08 Satie | UE a als A ey ms © Omer BPO, 71 


IV BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156] 


The Eagle Dance on Grand River (Six Nations Reserve), Canada________ 
The ‘Onondaga ceremony <= -.- 2.225320 5 5 See re ee 


The Cayuga Eagle Society ceremony at Sour Springs Longhouse- -__ 
The Iroquois Eagle Dance as a cultural phenomenon___________________ 
Salient-features.<--<=+--22-se2see seat eeetee tee ee 
A century-of- ethnology.-~ === =~~.-=-2+ 2.-seee cee ee 
Origin Jepends..- eee beeen eee cccsescecs ee eeees ces 
The legend.of Bloody) Hand. (02 5:J2¢-_ <_ 2 J2_ oul el soe eee 

The two brothers learn songs from birds___________________._- 
Chipping Sparrow’s adventure among Eagles_________________-_ 

Boy abducted: by-Dew Eagles). 20114 2.382 Soe: 
Version of-Diido-ewas 220) 24 oC. bos 2b av a agg gge ss 

Version. of -Chauncey- Warrior... +. 2s. SU Ee 
VersiomioiSnerer 22 eee. oe ee eet. OT ae 

A Tonawanda variant, by Ernest Smith_________________- 

A histone Tecord = + 2eceeee ue Hecate ae BU 

Grand River variants, by F. W. Waugh_______________--- 

Version of -Chief-Logans3s) 41s4_ 508 e002 Jo lipeagaedk. . - 
Saerifices-and- eagle trappiiigsss~ 2.<c2. S22eseb<i 2: Joo ee eee 
Sacrifice of the-first kill... 33%... 20091 AE! In sottodtetely enh es 
Bagle-shooting - = ==2-==2 ---<++4.c-. UAB, JF. aoesieion ee 
Hagle-batting<- +20. Js. enced el tee cdte eee lec a Dee 
Eagle catching, by Falling-day, Snipe Clan, Tonawanda__-_--- 

Dew Eagle dances on the deer, by Ernest Smith, Heron 

Clan, Tonawanda) 84/04 sain be. wciiele oe ee 

Obtaining eagle feathers, by Hair-burned-off, Snipe Clan, 
Tonawanda [Asti Ujot ell Ye Poet ee ea Te 
Pit-Weappinge= = 2<- ute 252 ee-22-222se se 25-4 On ae oe 
BHorer'’s <Atecount2 ss 264 1h Wea Bie 2 Teele. = BeBe 

he. (Cherokee peacet<hee2 oe = etic cee cl eee See 
The:roots of the Hagle ‘Dantes: 4... wie Oie) ee toolme lt o_o. 
Classification of Dew Eagles 22+ 22 22+2---.--<-<~ th? Se 
Dream-experiences...G442 UG 4) Aut 10 note. Sobek Oe 
“he first dream 2 <2 ws =e ed see ete cee eee een ee 
Wood-eater joins Hagle Society_______.__----_--_------------ 
What-Djido’ewas dreamed... =... cc cee ee cee tence I SE 
Ten-mornings becomes a member, by Djidg’gwas______--_------ 
Those who. have. inhérited: oc: 2. vittes_cds_alband a8) mais - - 
Geremonial-friends-.. 2-2 '=--.-esudenccseee ea eee 
Helper and -He-is-coming + .3..22-<220dsceck 2 Seo. . 
The dream and delirium of He-strikes-the-rushes__-______------ 
Comment... ===. -2<s2seuJhS 19 See Ve: Norte taaeiCt | 
Ritual equipmentist en, jo fhoneinesns pee ealod Joana | _ 
Ritual organizations.<2223¢ <u cc cece deere enen a eeNE SAE 
Selecting functionaries. = ----=--..J2¢0L 012 2 _Apeueiih sa. 
FnVItatiONS. -= 2 seen eee eeec eee eee eee eee = ere 
Arranging the. meeting - - -2<«u.2<..2<en de e_euebans 
Moiety- patterning.- -=---<2=2ucce kan dewkeeen sens fOoIqQue 

The rial -pattern- «<== <-<ssscencs =e cee deeenenn ss ou we 
Opening:<2c--+2222sSse2s2ce-5estacsscune ee. Vee 
Tobacco invooations = =22+24-<2522iu5deiesewt ION Oe 


CONTENTS V 


The Iroquois Eagle Dance as a cultural phenomenon—Continued 


The ritual pattern—Continued PAGE 
Hori and COnsenuOl speeches. = ss aaa eee See ee Fee 148 
he Gancooind senpols this 9 5%. Vy es ee Ne ee 151 
AUTOS) THEE ies ph ds, hh gd i lyn en Ne Mae AY tel Soro aay hae Be 152 
Porcumenvary Mistonyes 2 Saat Se we a ee ee eee ee ee 153 
ANGIE Vey rUt ue tLeENOUEG. 82 Se ee ee ee ee See ne 154 
DorrrpUtlen Mi COMparisOle. S.-  s eee ee See. 2 172 
RECRTTC MIE TO Ia re sey ea a a ae A I a Dae cee ee ee 206 
PeleiGer tiny Stn 2 ae enc bee ee te ee ae ere 210 

Supplement: An analysis of the Iroquois Eagle Dance and Songs, by 
Gertrade crokosch Murath*:= = seer oo sao Se ee ee eee 223 

ILLUSTRATIONS 
PLATES 


D> oe oo 


21. 


(All plates, except frontispiece, following page 222) 


(Frontispiece.) Dew Eagle dances on the deer. (Watercolor by Ernest 
Smith, Seneca artist of Tonawanda.) 


. The household of Resting-sky. Back row: Resting-sky and Voice-above. 


Center: It-dips-water; and (front) her grandson. 


. Sherman Redeye, Snipe Clan, Coldspring Seneca informant. 

. Clara Redeye, Voice-above, Hawk Clan, interpreter, at Coldspring. 

. It-dips-water, Hawk Clan matron, wife of Resting-sky, Coldspring Seneca. 
. Eagle Dance in 1942 for Big-canoe and He-carries-an-ax. 1, Wood-eater puts 


tobacco in the fire. 2,On the last song the dancers lay down the feather 
fans. 


. Eagle Dancein 1942. 1, The second round of speeches for Dew Eagle. 2, The 


dancers crouch and sway with the song. 


. Eagle Dance in 1942. 1, Passing the pig head and crying like crows. 2, 


Members carry home pails of corn soup. 


. Wood-eater, Bear Clan, Seneca ritualist at Coldspring. 
. Corn-husker, Hawk Clan, Seneca of Coldspring, and his two pet hawks. 
. Twenty-canoes, Bear Clan, and Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, Deer Clan, guard- 


ians of Handsome Lake’s message, as delegates from Coldspring to Tona- 
wanda Longhouse. 


. Snorer, Hawk Clan, Seneca of Coldspring. 
. Hemlocks-lying-down, Turtle Clan, conductor and singer of Seneca ceremonies 


at Coldspring. 


. Earth-hiller, matron of the Wolf Clan, Coldspring. 
. Helper, Sachem chief of the Bear Clan, Tonawanda Seneca. 
. 1, He-strikes-the-rushes, Snipe Clan, Seneca ritualist, with gourd rattle of the 


Medicine Company, in the costume of the Federal Period. 2, Chief 
Joseph Logan, Onondaga, and Simeon Gibson, Six Nations Reserve, Canada. 


. Djido’gwas, a Seneca of the Wolf Clan, at Coldspring. 

. Yankee Spring, a Seneca of the Beaver Clan, at Tonawanda. 

. Sarah Snow, Seneca of the Bear Clan, Coldspring’s clairvoyant and herbalist. 
. Eagle Society Bundles. 1, Fans and gourd rattles from the bundle of Hem- 


locks-lying-down. 2, An old set of fans in New York State Museum. 
Striped emblem pole of Eagle Society, displayed for a meeting of the Society. 
(Courtesy New York State Museum.) 


*For contents of supplement, see pp. 225-227. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLL. 156] 


. Five-feathered fans from Cattaraugus Seneca. (Milwaukee Public Museum 


photograph.) 


. Water drum and horn rattle, by Clarence White of Coldspring, laid out for 


Eagle Dance singers. 


. Horn rattles: Left, two by Hemlocks-lying-down; right, by Corn-husker. 

. Corn-husker’s wife leaches white corn for soup. 

. Hulled white corn after three washings. 

. The Seneca Eagle Dance. (Oil painting by Ernest Smith, Seneca artist of 


Tonawanda.) 


. Cherokee Eagle Dance movements by Will West Long: Approach, holding 


the fan, and crouch. 


FIGURES 
(Fenton) PAGE 
1. Floor plan of Eagle Dance for Francis Bowen_____________________- 14 
2. Floor plan of Eagle Dance for Resting-sky_______....._-_________- 22 
(Kurath) 

3. Groind pilanror sencen ceremony <2 68 3 2 hs a ee 233 
4. Ground plan of Onondaga private ritual____________.________-__-- 234 
5. Ground plan of Cayuga Longhouse ritual___...........-. 2-20. .- 234 
6. “Posttires oF dancers]. | 2 02 96S) 30k ROR ee 20. Saver 235 
7. Seneca choreography to first dance song, 8. 4._._--________________- 236 
8. Onondaga choreography to first dance song, Oa. 3, 4._____.______-- 236 
9. Introductory chants 2200 208 aOR oe Be eS Oa Sante \ - Oana ae 238 
10. Dance songs 8. 5, Oa. 13, C. 3—comparative__.._._.__.-.---_----- 239 
11. Dance songs 8. 6, Oa. 14—comparative.______.___------.___-_-__- 240 
12. 5: 4 and S. t4—comparative...2)2 8 22 St SB _e) A Osaka 240 
ia. 7 2 COMPpPErAbIVes sa Snes oe ene eee eee 241 
PERE £968 SG soilosage lo havior bnimnasd’T \ . REOs shoo els 241 
15. S. 9, 11, and Oa. 11; 8. 10 and Oa. 6—comparative________-__-____- 242 
16. 5.12) Og, 15, ©; 7—coniparative.o 2 2°22 * ooo ee OE SRR e ee 243 
47, Oa: 879. 10,2 ne nwo To sling otsed rune pa 244 
18S: 3, Pe, 15, 16. see Pee SR ENG) Y BOGUS Bh 1 eee 245 
19. 8. 377 Oa. 12. C. 5,°S—comiparative. 22 SOC! o>. Ula AW See Osea 246 
20. Final dance songs, S. 18, Oa. 16, C. 9—comparative____-_----_--_- 247 
Zi. pecundal Seales: 20 2 2202) SS, SL Sa CODERS Ree 250 
22. Lertial seales. 2-2 tu J eee eee 251 
2a. Quartal scales. = .--- 2.22 10 BORE Rect BER 252 
24. Irregiiar seales_ so 2 Se Pe) i Ce Os 253 
25, Rhythmic wniis._2___-- 2 62 e. ole eee ee 257 
26. Symmetrical contours, parallel and complementary --_--_------------ 261 
27, Asymmetrical contours Ob Os 1 tbe! 3Ooe. he Re On ee meee 262 
28. Sequential contours—opening and closing songs__-.---------------- 263 
2y, intertribal dance patterns.) 2002 Soe ee eee. Bee 286 
aU: Map ‘of distribution |. 2 Se PRO Oe ee eee Facing 288 
31. Tonawanda 1,2, 10‘scales!- 28 020! 20 eee eee ee 290 
32. Song excerpts: Pawnee, Omaha invocation; Pueblo, Illinois____----- 291 
33. Tonawanda 9, 4; Fox songs 1, 2, 3; seales___..-..._--_-_-.-_-.---- 292 
34. Pawnee Hako, Omaha Wa’wa2, Illinois Calumet Dance Songs------ 293 
35, Tonawanda 3d, 6, 0, 62-20 on te Se 2 ee eet ae oe 294 

36. Cherokee songs 1, 3, 4; scales of tertial Tonawanda and Cherokee 


THE IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 
AN OFFSHOOT OF THE CALUMET DANCE 


By WiuiiamM N. FENTON 


INTRODUCTION 


The present monograph stems from a dissertation which was origi- 
nally presented to the faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University 
in candidacy for the degree of doctor of philosophy, 1937. The disser- 
tation incorporated ethnographic materials which were gathered 
during field work in western New York between 1933 and 1936, and 
these were marshaled in a way to show the bearing of the problem of 
individual variation in behavior on ethnology. My interest in this 
problem has continued during 12 years of field investigations among the 
Iroquois and other tribes while a member of the staff of the Bureau of 
American Ethnology. For one reason or another the monograph has 
remained unpublished, and the present draft represents a third re- 
writing. New material has accumulated, historical perspective has 
deepened and widened, and methods of handling historical problems 
call for a different presentation. Experience has indicated that it is 
best to look at historical sources from the viewpoint of the field and to 
test early descriptions of Indian behavior against a knowledge of how 
Indians behave as persons. When J at first proceeded from ethnology 
to the earlier historical sources and tried to reconcile the two types of 
data across the chasm of several centuries by reading history chrono- 
logically up to the present, I met with small success. It works better 
to begin with the present and work steadily backward. For this 
application of the archeologists’ method of ‘direct historic approach” 
I have borrowed the term ‘“‘upstreaming,” from the classical archeolo- 
gists. 

Ethnology frequently demands historical investigation at different 
levels. Starting with individual informants, more general levels are 
the community, the tribe, neighboring tribes, and the area. The theme 
of this investigation is that the diversity of individual expression in 
cultural situations reflects the personal history of the individual within 
the culture of his group. In the Eagle Dance individuals participate 
differently in a ceremony which is part of their common cultural heri- 

1 


Her o 8 1953 


2 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


tage. Much of the individual differences in behavior consists in 
performing well roles that are shared by several members of the group 
and delivering certain utterances which are known to several erudite 
members of the group. Iroquois ceremonies differ locally in detail, 
and individual ritual custodians cherish local and tribal variants and 
modify them slightly even after prolonged residence in another com- 
munity. But everywhere in Iroquoia the Eagle Dance ritual has one 
underlying ceremonial pattern which sets limits to the expression of in- 
dividual personality, and this ritual pattern which orders the program 
of other Iroquois medicine society rites has developed in the long course 
of Iroquois history. It regiments all of their ceremonies. The Iroquois 
Eagle Dance, moreover, and its ritual paraphernalia bear a striking 
resemblance to the Eagle Dance of the Shawnee and the Cherokee, and 
all of these variants in the Appalachian Highlands derive from the dance 
in honor of the Calumet which Marquette first encountered among the 
Illinois at a time when the Iroquois lacked it. The Calumet Dance 
spread from the Pawnee east, south, and west, and north following 
1680, and in an attenuated form it seems to have reached the Iroquois 
about 1750. Such a cultural phenomenon as the Eagle Dance and its 
relation to the Calumet Dance, and the spread of the latter, cannot be 
explained satisfactorily by only using the functional method which 
studies the interaction of various elements and institutions of culture 
at a given point of time, for the explanation of individual and of group 
behavior often lies in history. 

Such anthropological theory as I possess I owe to the faculty in 
anthropology at the Yale Graduate School who contributed to my 
professional training some years ago. Prof. Edward Sapir and Dr. 
Clark Wissler, who will not read this bulletin, taught me linguistics, 
ethnohistory, and a respect for Indians as persons. Dr. Leslie Spier 
coached my dissertation, and from him I learned how to be a profes- 
sional ethnographer. Prof. Cornelius Osgood introduced me to the 
literature on the Americas, and Prof. George Peter Murdock taught me 
how to test field work in the library. Material culture came alive in 
the hands of Te Rangi Hiroa (Sir Peter Buck). The students of my 
age group are now professionals—teachers, museum administrators, 
and researchers—mostly outside of the Americanist tradition in which 
we were reared. Anthropology has grown immensely since June of 
1933 when Professor Sapir and Dr. Mark May sent me out to the 
Iroquois from the Institute of Human Relations and subsequently 
earmarked funds for my research. I should have failed completely 
were it not for the friendly advice of Dr. Frank G. Speck, who, although 
I was not enrolled as his student at the University of Pennsylvania, 
suggested a method of outlining the Seneca ceremonies at Coldspring 
Longhouse which gave unity to all my later work (Fenton, 1936 b). For 


SADi ca tse 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 3 


my dissertation, he contributed notes on the Cherokee and Cayuga 
Eagle Dances and read the manuscript. Speck later became a member 
of the Eagle Society at Coldspring, an honor which I cannot claim, and 
his Seneca friends performed the rite for him last on January 20, 1950, 
in an effort to revive him “‘on the brink of the grave’’ (Speck, 1950; 
and The Seneca of Coldspring Longhouse, 1950, pp. 60-61). 

From my colleagues in Eastern Woodland studies, Prof. Carl and 
Dr. Erminie Voegelin of Indiana University, I have received notes 
on the Sawikila Eagle Dance of the Shawnee. Martha Champion 
Randle spent a week with us at Tonawanda in 1936, recording Bob 
Shanks’ Eagle songs, which are now transcribed happily by Gertrude 
P. Kurath of Ann Arbor, Mich., author of the analysis of the dance 
and songs which supplements my study. Beginning in 1941 recording 
equipment was made available to me by the Library of Congress, and 
the Eagle Dance recorded by Chief Joseph Logan of Six Nations 
Reserve was included in the first album of Iroquois music (Fenton, 
1942, pp. 29-30). For a good deal of historical and distributional 
data I am indebted to Prof. Regina Flannery Herzfeld, of Catholic 
University of America, and the late Prof. John M. Cooper. 

Ethnology among the Iroquois has a long genealogy, which I have 
recounted several times (Fenton, 1940, pp. 160-164; 1949, pp. 233- 
234; 1951 a). Lewis H. Morgan, America’s great ethnologist, pre- 
ceded me a century ago at Tonawanda, and I once had access to his 
journals and field notes at the Rush Rhees Library of the University of 
Rochester. F.W. Waugh was one of the people for whom Sapir made 
field work possible at Grand River during the second decade of the 
century. Waugh’s Iroquois Field Notes, in manuscript, was lent to 
me some years ago by the National Museum of Canada through Dr. 
Diamond Jenness. The originals are in Ottawa, but a duplicate set 
of Waugh’s folklore collection is now at the American Philosophical 
Society Library. The Waugh papers contain several references to 
the Eagle Dance. 

Subsequently, Dr. Alexander A. Goldenweiser sent me his Iroquois 
notebooks, which contain some pointed notes on the Eagle Dance. To 
Dr. Arthur C. Parker, emeritus director of the Rochester Museum of 
Arts and Sciences, I am indebted for contributions from his early 
Newtown Seneca field notes and excerpts from the manuscripts of 
Laura Wright, and for his kindness in reading a preliminary draft of 
this monograph. 

I once used the reference libraries of Buffalo, incurring debts of 
gratitude to many persons. I worked mainly at the Buffalo Historical 
Society where I remember the kindness of Robert W. Bingham to a 
student, and the help of Miss Alice Pickup, librarian. 

Ernest Smith is one of a band of Seneca draftsmen at Tonawanda, 


4 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


and my friend Roy M. Mason, N. A., gave him criticism in painting 
when Smith set out to illustrate my ethnology. To the New York 
State Museum and other such institutions I have given credit where 
due for photographs and permissions to publish. In first preparing 
this manuscript great credit is due to Olive Ortwine Fenton, who tried 
to teach me to write coherently and who became my wife. 

It is the custom in ethnology to call the bearers of the oral tradition 
‘Gnformants.’”’ At Coldspring, Jonas and Josephine Snow were my 
hosts one summer, as were Sherman and Clara Redeye the next winter 
and summer. I learned as I ate and lived in the community. Some 
informants worked for wages by the hour; on principle, I paid them 
when we worked regularly according to local wage standards. These 
were my friends at Coldspring, as are those of them who survive to- 
day (1951): Levi Snow, Charles and Sadie Butler, William, Hattie, 
and LeRoy Cooper, Chief John Jacobs, Jonas Crouse, Wesley White, 
Albert Jones, John Jimmerson, Chief Hiram Watt, Chauncey Johnny 
John, Howard Jimmerson, Henry Redeye, Myron and Lucy Turkey, 
Chauncey and Geneva Warrior, and others who listened to and pa- 
tiently answered my questions during two summers at Coldspring. 
James Crow, Jake Jack, and Jesse Cornplanter, whose ethnological in- 
terest dates from childhood memory of his father Edward Cornplanter 
working with Prof. Frederick Starr, Arthur C. Parker, and M. R. 
Harrington, introduced me to Seneca customs at Newtown Longhouse, 
Cattaraugus Reservation. 

I cannot mention all of the 600 persons at Tonawanda who made 
2% years among them a unique experience, but Chief Barber Black, 
Chief Edward Black, Chief Lyman Johnson, Chief Solon Skye, and 
Chief Henan Scrogg made a policy of seeing that I got things straight; 
and besides, I tutored under Elijah David, Simeon Skye, Jesse Corn- 
planter, and Robert Shanks; Cephas Hill and his mother, Jennie 
Jones, made me always welcome; and Rev. Peter W. Doctor enjoyed 
going back to his pagan upbringing to enrich my knowledge. 

Onondaga information comes principally from Chief David Thomas, 
his wife, their son, and his friend Floyd Henhawk. I did not witness 
the Eagle Dance at Newtown or at Onondaga, N. Y. In Canada, 
the late Simeon Gibson was my interpreter (Fenton, 1944), and Chief 
Joseph Logan of Onondaga Longhouse recorded for me. Chief Alex- 
ander General and Howard Skye of the Cayuga Nation have proved 
invaluable sources. 

In quoting informants and in citing information about them, the 
text employs English translations of Indian personal names that they 
hold as members of particular clans and by which they are called on 
ceremonial occasions. Many of these people who were my friends 
have already ‘‘gone the long trail’; those who are left deserve my 


FEnTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 5 


wholehearted loyalty. Let those who read this monograph accept it 
with a clear mind, for it is written without malice aforethought in 
the spirit of speeches made at Hagle Dance meetings. 


THE PROBLEM 


Field workers in North America have all experienced the dilemma of 
the ethnographer trying to resolve data which were obtained from in- 
formants who agree only on the patterned aspects of their culture, 
such as the presence of clans, the function of moieties, and the broad 
outlines of a calendric series of ceremonies. However, the appreci- 
ation that individual variations within the culture pattern or from a 
supposed norm are legitimate cultural data, which Radin championed 
in ethnology (Radin, 1920, 1926, 1927, 1933), and which Sapir stim- 
ulated in culture-personality psychology (Mandelbaum, 1949), has 
grown apace with the interest of the role of the individual in the cul- 
ture of his society (Linton, 1936, 1947; Hallowell, 1946; Fenton,1948; 
Wallace, A. F. C., 1952). The ethnographic material on the Eagle 
Dance which follows shows the extent to which individual participation 
affects cultural situations and what aspects of such behavior can be 
accounted for with the ordinary techniques of ethnology. The meth- 
ods and techniques of projective tests were developed after this study 
was made and were not then available. Itis interesting, however, to 
compare my impressions of Iroquois personality (Fenton, 1948), 
written under the stimulation of reading Hallowell (1946), with the 
findings of Wallace (1952), who confirmed my predictions for the 
Tuscarora. 

During the summer of 1933, I conducted my first field work among 
the Seneca Nation, spending the whole season at Coldspring on the 
Allegany Indian Reservation, which stretches 40 miles along the Al- 
legheny River in southwestern New York. I went to Allegany Res- 
ervation because two previous generations of my family have been 
acquainted with Seneca families resident there. My father had 
once taken me to a Green Corn Dance at Coldspring Longhouse, and 
we had visited among the families of “pagans” in the neighborhood. 
Corn-husker had made masks for my father and had assisted in assem- 
bling an ethnological collection, which was later divided between the 
United States National Museum and the Museum of the American 
Indian, Heye Foundation. So Corn-husker took me to board with 
his family, and I slept out in an umbrella tent which had been lent 
to me by Scudder Mekeel, who had preceded me at the Institute. 
Living in the dooryard of a Seneca family had distinct advantages. 
My host knew about the old culture and he was interested in my wel- 
fare. From the vantage point of Corn-husker’s dooryard, I observed 
and noted the goings and comings of his family, their relatives, and 


6 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


friends. In turn we visited other houses to attend meetings of a 
singing society, to widen my circle of acquaintance, and to get specific 
information. 

I stayed with Corn-husker from June until after the Green Corn 
Festival in September. As the single White stranger in the commu- 
nity, a member of a race whom the Seneca had come to suspect if not 
dislike (Sullivan and Brodhead had come against the Seneca in 1779; 
the Whites had cheated the Indians of their lands at Buffalo Creek in 
1838; Yankee farmers lived all around them; and in the city of Sal- 
amanca on leased land were merchants and lawyers, railroad workers, 
and middle-class folks, some friendly and some unfriendly), naturally 
my ethnological activities were watched and discussed by the Indian 
individuals and families, who reacted according to their own interests 
and prejudices, their sentiment for the Longhouse Religion of Hand- 
some Lake, or their belief as Christians that I was giving lip service to 
the ‘‘pagan societies.” They grouped me with Corn-husker’s family— 
“that White man who sleeps in a tent at Corn-husker’s’’—and grad- 
ually they regarded me as a person. The ethnologist presented a 
single personality; to him the community presented many person- 
alities. 

Life at Coldspring is a going concern and the longhouse settlement 
has a culture of its own. Albeit this culture is not the integrated 
culture of an aboriginal Seneca community, nevertheless faith in the 
revelation of the Seneca Prophet, Handsome Lake, unites a small 
autonomous group of families and gives them a sense of belonging to 
something which is ancient and respectable; and they cherish the last 
vestiges of that culture, which their somewhat isolated life on the res- 
ervation has engendered. I write this knowing that of three railroads 
crossing the reservation, the Erie has given employment to the men of 
Coldspring for several generations. The “regular” gang and the 
“extra” gang comprise two distinct classes of workmen in the commu- 
nity. Work in the woods has given way to construction work, prin- 
cipally on New York State highways, of which two main roads junction 
at Coldspring. Randolph, Salamanca, and Bradford have supplanted 
nearby Quaker Bridge, Steamburg, and Red House as shopping centers. 
And children are transported to State-supported schools. But despite 
these identifications with rural New York, from their babyhood chil- 
dren are taught Seneca, “‘the real language’? (ggw’e’ gweka’’),! which 
is spoken in Coldspring, and later they learn English (gényg: ka’’), the 
language of the White man, his schools, and his work-a-day world. 
(Conditions have changed rapidly since my first visit in 1933; it was 
the period of the depression, there was no work off the reservation, and 
many old people who spoke little English were yet alive. Change has 


1 See phonetic note, p. 12, 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 7 


accelerated during a Second World War. Now many of the children 
are not learning Seneca.) Women still pick huckleberries along the 
tracks and carry them home in splint baskets of their own manufacture. 
On summer evenings, mutual aid societies meet to compose and 
rehearse dance songs, there are impromptu social dances, and the 
members hoe each other’s gardens, cut wood, and help the women 
(Fenton, 1936 a). Men still play lacrosse in summer, although base- 
ball is a keen rival, and snow-snake remains the distinctive Indian 
winter sport. Nearly everyone attends the stated festivals at the 
longhouse. 

Coldspring used to be noted for its well-kept Indian gardens, 
although in my time there, both good and poor gardens were common. 
Corn-husker had a well-kept garden of potatoes, cabbage, corn, pole 
beans, squash, and pumpkins. At various times the whole family 
worked in the garden and older women still assumed much of the tra- 
ditional burden of cultivation. Rude plank and clapboard houses 
were the rule and well-tended lawns were not exceptional. At Corn- 
husker’s the accessories of the old garden and kitchen culture—corn 
mortar, dumbbell pestle, washing basket, pack basket, hand baskets— 
lay where they were left about the dooryard or stood behind the house. 
There was the inevitable drawshave horse or schnitzelbank and a bent 
white hickory timber for making a lacrosse stick. 

Inside the house at night, the kerosene lamp would illumine a mud 
turtle rattle, a bag of horn rattles, a lacrosse stick hanging on the wall 
next to a shotgun, and baseball gloves. Indians especially like photo- 
graphs—individual portraits, group pictures of athletic teams, mem- 
bers of the family as show Indians in costume with some troupe, and 
a few pictures of movie stars. There is always a calendar advertising 
Dr. Somebody’s patent medicine which gives the phases of the moon 
and is consequently useful for computing the dates of festivals. An 
alarm clock stands on the shelf. Overhead, above the stove, snow- 
snakes, green hickory canes, a bow, and ash darts for the hoop-and- 
javelin game, extend across drying racks which are improvised by 
suspending two poles parallel on wire from the ceiling. Gourd and 
pumpkin rattles fitted with wooden handles hang high on the wall 
near a bundle of brown paper or floursacking from which protrude two 
sticks or tufts of feathers, indicating that some member of the Medicine 
Company lives here. 

When members of the family are taken sick, they try various herbal 
medicines suggested by the elders. If they dream, they consult a 
clairvoyant, who may suggest joining one of the medicine societies. 
If they recover, they feel thankful and “put up their societies” and 
give feasts for the tutelaries of the societies, lest the sickness revert to 
them or their children. 


8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


A Seneca is born into one of eight clans which are divided into two 
phratries or moieties. At death, the four clans of the other 
moiety conduct the wake and funeral, supervise the last journey to the 
longhouse, and bury their “‘cousin.”” Such services are reciprocal. 
Although the Seneca bear patrilineal English family names, they prac- 
tice double descent, since membership in a clan implies the right to use 
one of a series of personal names belonging to that clan; it assigns the 
person automatically to a moiety or side, and he is an enrolled member 
of the tribe and entitled to receive a Government annuity—all by 
descent in the female line. Deeds to improvements on the reservation 
may pass from father to sons, but most personal property is disposed of 
by the clan at the Ten Days’ Feast. And the title to the reservation, 
which they hold in severalty, ultimately rests in the women. 

Such information came to me by observation, in answer to direct 
questions, as anecdote accompanying genealogies, in conversations at 
all manner of gatherings and ceremonials, at meals, and while walking 
on the road. Thus I endeavored to learn rapidly the social and 
ceremonial affiliation of everyone in the commupity. 

Apart from individual variations in behavior which arise at psycho- 
logical levels beyond the reach of the ethnologist, I noted first among 
the Seneca diversity of individual expression which struck me as 
being the product of the peculiar participation of these individuals in 
the culture of the group. Men know some things because of personal 
history. In the first summer, I was continually impressed that indi- 
viduals differed on the most elementary cultural data: names for 
baskets, the order for listing clans, and knowledge of the types of 
masks (Fenton, 1937, p. 216). Members of the same household had 
separate and often divergent stories for the beginning of a medicine 
society, and they gave varying accounts of participation in the cere- 
monies. Men whom [I had observed in positions of authority, as 
ritual conductors of longhouse celebrations or private rites of a 
society, might know all of the songs and the procedure, but they proved 
quite ignorant concerning the origin and history of the ceremonies. 
As time went on, the housemother where I boarded voluntarily 
commented on possible informants. She had entertained the medicine 
societies in her home, and although she seldom attended public cere- 
monies at the longhouse, she knew: ‘“‘ Hemlocks-lying-down is a good 
singer, and he knows all about medicines; Snorer is the best speaker, 
he knows the origin legends, and you will have to pay him; Woodeater 
is proud, he speaks little English, and he may not tell you; I guess my 
man Corn-husker does not know what his father knew; and old Stick- 
lodged-in-a-crotch is always asleep and they say he never hears what 
the speaker says.” 

I began to realize that within the framework of a simple commu- 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 9 


nity of 72 households and 326 persons, individuals participate differ- 
ently in affairs which are their common social heritage. Also my 
approach to principal persons carried the feeling-tone of my adopted 
household. 

My first effort was to establish the pattern which underlies the 
rituals, for many of them presented superficial similarities and seemed 
to follow a common program (Fenton, 1936b). The Eagle Dance was 
among the first medicine society rites which I was privileged to 
witness that first summer when my enthusiasm for recording all I saw 
‘and noting the clan membership of every participant had not been 
dampened by the criticism of learned informants who soon told me 
that much of what I noted was really irrelevant to the ritual. My 
spurious accuracy contrasted with a review of the meeting by Hem- 
locks-lying-down, who had conducted the ceremony; he corrected my 
notes and gave me an account of the ceremony which revealed an 
abstract pattern for the ritual which he knew from many meetings. 
Later, as better informants and interpreters were secured and I com- 
menced to control the outline of the ritual, I decided that what 
individuals had to say in these meetings might constitute a body 
of interesting data. 

Sapir’s lectures on the “Impact of Culture on Personality,” during 
the next academic year at Yale, stimulated me to pursue data on 
personality expression in ritual. I was back in Coldspring for the 
Seneca New Year (January 18 to February 2, 1934). With the ritual 
pattern firmly in mind, I set about recording the expressions of indi- 
vidual personalities which came to me in the form of life-history data, 
direct testimony, gossip about others; I noted what individuals took 
part in the ceremonies and what roles were assigned to them; and I 
paid particular heed to derogatory speeches which have a formalized 
place in the Eagle Dance and in the War Dance, which are two of the 
medicine society meetings. It is in these speeches that one finds 
individuals reacting to the behavior of others within the formal 
outline of a ceremony. Within the larger framework of Iroquois 
ceremonialism the culture has provided this opportunity for individ- 
uals to drain off aggression. The speeches made on these occasions 
reflect personality conflicts, prejudices, humor, and bitterness, and 
all those varied emanations, such as song, gesture, and etiquette, 
which result from individual participation in the culture of the 
group, and are, in short, an individual’s own peculiar culture or his 
personality. 

Individuals who participated in the meetings of Eagle Society 
which I have attended at Coldspring and at Tonawanda have their 
own personal histories, which are distinct from the history of the 
Eagle Society. Although their behavior patterns conform mainly to 


10 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


the lines of least resistance within the well-worn grooves of the ritual, 
nevertheless one individual may tower above his fellows for sheer 
quality in performing routine tasks, another may feel uncomfortable 
in the presence of a third, and because of some past incident he may 
not speak at all, and a fourth person may absent himself entirely. A 
fifth person may enjoy the situation immensely and rise to joke with 
his fellow members of Eagle Society who are his neighbors. 

There were some five men and a woman whose presence or absence 
affected the form and content of two Eagle Society meetings at Cold- 
spring. Their case histories seem relevant to this discussion. The 
cases are pertinent to the first two meetings. The first meeting em- 
phasizes the ritual and is followed by an anniversary celebration of 
Resting-sky’s cure by the Eagle Society. The latter meeting illus- 
trates how the varied personalities participated in the situation, and 
possibly their behavior, individually as well as together, was the result 
of historical processes. The notes from this meeting also illustrate 
how ritual, or progressively abbreviated set forms of behavior, is 
influenced by variation in individual behavior. 

Perhap’s like Radin’s good investigators (Radin, 1933, p. ix), I am 
hardly aware of the precise manner in which I gathered the data on 
the Eagle Dance as a cultural phenomenon. In the season of 1934 
and in the 2% years that followed in the Indian Service, I employed 
the Coldspring observations as a lever to pry from many informants 
in several Iroquois communities all I could get on the Hagle Society. 
That the ethnologist finds out what he already knows is a maxim 
which all later field work has confirmed. While at Tonawanda I 
came to use Seneca in daily conversations, and a good deal of the 
material was noted in phonetic script, especially the prayers which 
I took in text. But most of the accounts came in “Reservation 
English” from bilingual informants who shift back and forth between 
Iroquois and English. I offer their original remarks unaltered ex- 
cept by changes in grammar to render them intelligible to readers. 

The approach to ethnographic problems is inevitably that of the 
ethnologist. I have conscientiously endeavored to present culture 
from the viewpoint of the Jroquois, keeping my own discussion apart 
from the data. Ethnography is not a chronological record of re- 
searches such as the ethnologist writes in a journal, but is rather a 
synthesis of material centered on a problem which the ethnologist dis- 
covers in the literature and carries to the field, or which, as in the 
present case, the data themselves suggest. The task of ethnology is 
the description of a given culture. 

Field work progresses from the specific to the general. The obser- 
vations of specific ceremonies and accounts of the ritual from separate 
localities and the cases of participating personalities precede the most 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE hb} 


general chapter which orients the Eagle Society in Iroquois culture. 
When traditional history is exhausted, documentary history and 
comparative ethnography give depth and breadth. 

A word first about the Tonawanda, Onondaga, and Grand River 
variants of the Eagle Dance: A ceremonial friendship existed at 
Tonawanda between Helper, a chief of the Bear Clan, and his younger 
neighbor, He-is-coming, of the Snipe clan in the other moiety. They 
chose to renew this friendship in February 1935, shortly after my 
arrival at Tonawanda. After the meeting, I wrote up my observa- 
tions, noting obvious differences from the Coldspring version. I con- 
sulted the principals and obtained as full accounts as they would 
give of the doings. Again, certain personalities, whom I came to know 
well and saw frequently for 2 years, largely determined the content of 
that meeting. He-strikes-the-rushes, who was reared at Newtown 
on Cattaraugus Reservation and later lived at Coldspring on Allegany 
Reservation, had come back to live with his wife at Tonawanda 
whence his mother had gone to Cattaraugus. Custom has adhered to 
him as he has adjusted to three localized ceremonial systems. Ton- 
awanda people quite misunderstood him at this meeting when, in the 
Newtown pattern, he exercised the privileged joking relationship 
with his father’s clansman. The latter misconstrued his meaning 
because, like everyone else at Tonawanda, he did not know of such 
a pattern or that it is sometimes employed in the Eagle Dance. 

Watching and participating at later meetings of the Society at 
Tonawanda, Allegany, and Six Nations have served to check first 
impressions. ‘Too long residence in the field, however, unavoidably 
brings a certain loss of freshness; it encourages abstraction, and in- 
vites the Indian’s philosophy of procrastination. Frequent, repeated 
visits over a span of years yield a series of observations, contributing 
to mature conclusions. 

Because Tonawanda people feel that their local version of the Eagle 
Dance is correct in those features which stand at variance with the 
Coldspring Seneca version, the Newtown Seneca version, and the ver- 
sions current among the Canadian Iroquois, local diversity merits 
separate treatment. My own data and those of Mrs. Kurath on the 
Onondaga ceremony on Grand River precede the description of the 
Cayuga rite, which follows Speck (1949, pp. 111-1138). 

In placing the Eagle Dance in its ethnographic and historical per- 
spective, two problems arise: first, the abundant historical literature 
on the Iroquois, so full on other matters, contains so few references 
to anything resembling the Eagle Dance that the age of its appearance 
among the Iroquois is uncertain; and second, where was its source? 

The Eagle Dance, in all its variants among the related Iroquois, 


982306—53——2 


12 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156 


is a congeries of traits which, when analyzed and plotted, have separate 
distributions among neighboring peoples. I am not here concerned 
with trait distributions. But the patterning of these traits among 
the Iroquois most closely resembles the Calumet Dance which Mar- 
quette first encountered among tribes living in the Mississippi Valley 
between the Great Lakes and the St. Francis River in Arkansas; 
it bears analogies to the Pawnee Hako and its later variants on the 
Northern Plains. The Iroquois of the seventeenth century are said 
to have disrespected the calumet, by which the French writers meant 
the reed and fan. Features of the ancient rite are perpetuated in 
the modern Iroquois Eagle Dance, so we may expect that some form 
of the widely distributed Calumet Dance diffused to the Iroquois 
toward the middle of the eighteenth century either from the Upper 
Great Lakes, from the Southeast, at the height of the Cherokee wars, 
or directly from the Pawnee, who perpetuated its most elaborate 
form. 

After the above was written the music and dance were transcribed 
by Gertrude Prokosch Kurath. It is interesting to see the analysis 
of the dance and the songs bear out the original findings of ethno- 
history. Taking the lead from my dissertation, Mrs. Kurath 
pursued her study independently and has reached similar conclusions 
about the relationship of the Iroquois Eagle Dance to the Pawnee 
Hako, the diffusion of the Calumet Dance, and its survival in recent 
times. The method of science which submits a problem to inde- 
pendent researchers for testing with separate data and different 
methods in this case brings corroboration of the original finding. 


PHONETIC NOTE 


The orthography employed in this paper is the same as that used 
in previous publications (Fenton, 1936 b, 1941 a). It reduces Seneca 
transcription to a minimum of characters required by the economy 
of the language. The vowels a (of English father), d (of English 
hand) e (of English met), e (of French éé), 2 (of French fini), and o 
(of English mote) may later be reduced to four: a, e,2, ando. They 
occur frequently in diphthongs and less frequently triphthongs. Na- 
salization is denoted by a hook beneath the vowel. A raised comma 
indicates the glottal stop. The character § is “‘c’”’ (of English shoe); 
2 varies between “‘dz”’ and ‘‘dj”’ (of English adz and judge) depending 
on the speaker; s and ¢ are ordinarily somewhat aspirated; heavily 
aspirated s and ¢ are followed by A (e. g., sh and th), h everywhere 
indicates aspiration; and 7’ indicates a terminal whispered ¢ which 
is articulated after a terminal glottal stop in a few words. 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 13 


THE SENECA EAGLE DANCE AT COLDSPRING ON 
ALLEGHENY RIVER 


A SUMMER MEETING, WITH EMPHASIS ON THE RITUAL 


Hemlocks-lying-down came up the road past Corn-husker’s about 
dusk, carrying a leatheroid bag. It contained his drum, a black 
horn rattle, and his Eagle Society bundle. He informed me that he 
was the conductor and singer and so, therefore, he was inviting me 
to attend an Eagle Dance over at Esther Fatty’s across the road. 

We sat talking under a maple tree in front of the house until his 
grandson, who was to be one of the dancers, came along carrying a 
tin pail. The latter was limping. He said that he heard a screech 
owl in a pine tree toward the longhouse and that he had turned his 
ankle. Hemlocks-lying-down remarked that hearing a screech owl 
is bad luck. Then we picked ourselves up and wandered over cross- 
lots to Esther Fatty’s house. We entered through the south door, 
going past the kitchen stove where she was cooking soup in a wash 
boiler. 

Francis Bowen (Hawk), Esther Fatty’s son, and Corn-husker’s 
second son (Bear), from our house, were in the adjoining room, 
where the ceremonies were to be held. Two-arrows-flying (Hawk), 
her grandson, and Sam Fatty (Snipe), 80, her father, came down off 
the hill from across the Erie tracks. Sam was carrying a lantern. 

Presently the room filled with the invited guests, members of the 
Eagle Society, and they took their places on the chairs and benches 
which had been placed about the room in readiness. Hemlocks- 
lying-down, the conductor, seated them according to the accompanying 


diagram (fig. 1). Participation in the meeting * Moiety meets 
1. Francis Bowen (ska’iyogwi-yo-’), recipient of the ceremony------ If x 
2. Esther Fatty, Hawk Clan, matron and hostess to her son____-_-- I (2) 
3. Hemlocks-lying-down, Turtle Clan, messenger, conductor, and 
TERE 2 ee OO Dem ee © eee ee OE ER 2 le Teoh Chek POND AGE x 
4, Two-arrows-flying, Hawk Clan, dancer___._..___-_-___-___-_- iE x 
5. Hemlocks-lying-down’s grandson, Beaver Clan, dancer_______- II x 
6. Corn-husker, Hawk Clan, whooper__........-..------------- I x 
7. Amos Red Eye, Heron Clan, presentation speaker__..._..------ I x 
8. Wood-eater, Bear Clan, speaker and priest, and presentation speaker. IT x 
9. Sam Fatty, Snipe Clan, gift custodian__.........-_--..------ I xX 
10. William Cooper, Snipe Clan, second singer_._._._...--------- I x 
11. Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, Deer Clan____________-______--_-- I x 
12. Corn-husker’s second son, Bear Clan, standing.___._________- TE x 
13. Wife and baby.of dancer,5; Hawk Clan 3. .Jo..0!¢.- feck I (?) 
14. Recipient’s young son, Turtle Clan, reading paper____.____-__- II (?) 
15. Son of second singer 10, Bear Clan, reading paper___--..----. I (?) 
LOS Wee 


17. Child asleep on floor. 
*X=member; (?)=status unknown. 


14 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


LAGL a 2 DAN: ee. 
FRANCIS BOWEN 
GIFT CUSTODIAN 


RECIPIENT 


a) : 
o) 


IS 
2ND PRES. SPEAKER 
/4 
SECOND SINGER 
10 
oe = 
e a 


FIRST SINGER SPEAAER ¥ PRIEST 
@NO PRES. SPEAKER 


Tenia tl T 
OANCERS WHOOPER 


MATRON 


iil) Aaw ] STRIKING STICK 

T  OANCERS RATTLE CO BASKET OF CRACKERS 

P HORN RATTLE @ SH OF TOBACCO 

O oOfUM [] WASH BOILER OF CORN SOUP 
7 ORUM BEATER @© PORK FOR FEAST 


Ficure 1.—Floor plan of Eagle Dance for Francis Bowen. 


Several interesting facts bearing upon the problem of moiety aline- 
ment emerge from an analysis of the seating plan. The messenger, 
conductor, first singer, speaker, and priest are of the opposite moiety 


Frnron] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 15 


from the recipient or beneficiary of the ceremony. The dancers, 
singers, and presentation speakers represent each moiety. Moiety 
alinement for the whooper and the gift custodian seems unimportant. 
There is no spatial separation according to moieties in the sense that 
one moiety sits opposite its “cousins.” We note, however, a conven- 
ient arrangement of dancers and singers, in general opposite the speak- 
ers, with the gift custodian opposite the dancers. The matron or cook 
is the close relative of the recipient for whom she sponsors the ritual, 
arranging all details with the conductor in the opposite moiety, who 
in this instance acted also as first singer and supplied the ritual equip- 
ment. The attendants and functionaries are largely composed of the 
close relatives of the recipient, and all who have any active part are 
members. 
PRELIMINARY 


Esther Fatty handed a large market basket full of soda crackers to 
her son, Francis Bowen, who set it on the floor in the northeast corner. 

The two dancers were outside dressing. 

The conductor, Hemlocks-lying-down, took from his bag the water 
drum, with the beater pinned through the selvage of the skin head, 
together with a black horn rattle, and, removing the beater from the 
drum, laid it to the right of the drum which he inverted on the floor. 
He placed the rattle at the left of the drum with the handle toward the 
second singer. 

Hemlocks-lying-down, again as conductor, enlisted the services of 
several men for specific offices, going about whispering to each one 
separately. He asked Snorer (Hawk) to be whooper; Amos Red Eye 
(Heron) to present the fan and rattle to the dancer of his moiety; 
Wood-eater (Bear) to give the address of thanksgiving to the Great 
Spirit, to incant the tobacco-throwing prayer, and to present the fan 
and rattle to the dancer of his moiety; and, finally, Sam Fatty (Snipe) 
to take charge of distributing gifts—crackers—to the dancers following 
the speeches. 


THANKSGIVING TO ALL THE SPIRIT-FORCES 


Wood-eater delivered the Thanksgiving to the Spirit-forces, return- 
ing thanks especially for the tobacco. 


TOBACCO PRAYER TO THE DEW EAGLE 


Going to the kitchen, accompanied by the conductor carrying the 
tobacco in a saucer, Wood-eater held the wands and rattles and 
punctuated his prayer by committing pinches of tobacco to the 
flames (p. 145). 

When the tobacco prayer was ended, the conductor set the balance 
of the tobacco on the floor and presently a member filled his pipe and 


16 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BuLt. 156 


passed the dish to another. All the members who wish may smoke 
the Indian tobacco. The conductor puts the balance in his pouch or 
shares it with the priest. 

Now the feather wands were brought in from the kitchen with the 
tiny gourd rattles appended to the handles. Hemlocks-lying-down, 
the conductor, handed one to Wood-eater (Bear) and the other one to 
Amos Red Eye (Heron), for the other moiety. 


THE RITUAL 


(1) Whoop and Song I.2 (Here begins the Eagle Dance proper.) — 
Corn-husker whooped and all echoed weakly. Hemlocks-lying-down 
(now as head singer) struck the drum twice and commenced the first 
song; William Cooper joined the antiphony using the horn rattle. 
The dancers are seated in their chairs at this dance side by side, 
instead of facing. 

Toward the end of the song, Wood-eater took the striking stick and 
struck the floor, stopping the singing. He spoke and presented the fan 
and rattle to Hemlocks-lying-down’s grandson (Beaver), the dancer of 
his moiety. The dancer, who remained seated in receiving it, disen- 
gaged the rattle from the fan handle, holding it in his right hand and 
taking the fan in his left. The members reply ‘It is well” (nyoh), 
and the drummer strikes the drum once whenever the Creator or Dew 
Eagle is mentioned, or they are requested to be of one mind with 
their host. 

(2) Whoop and Song II—Amos Red Eye performed the same 
function for the other moiety, giving the wand and rattle to Two- 
arrows-flying (Hawk), who in turn took the wand in his left hand and 
the rattle in his right. 

(3) Whoop and Song III.—Sam Fatty (Snipe) reached for the stick, ® 
struck the floor vehemently, and, standing, addressed the host and 
members, taking charge of the crackers. 

Second round.—The next three speeches repeat the order of the 
first three speeches. They are delivered by the same men. 

(4) Whoop and Song IV.—The dance begins here. Immediately 
the dancers commence swaying from side to side in their chairs, flut- 
tering the calumet fans which they hold extended horizontally in their 
left hands, and beating time with their rattles. During the second 
part of the song, they crouch on the floor advancing and turning from 
side to side in imitation of birds. Halfway in the song they bend over, 
imitating birds scratching in the gravel and eating. Finally the head 

2“At Newtown,” according to He-strikes-the -rushes,‘‘a presentation address is made by the conductor, 
giving the drum and rattles to the singers so they can sing. Two slow songs follow and the wands are pre- 
sented. Frequently the first two songs are sung over by the priest as he finishes burning tobacco.”” Wood- 
eater sometimes does this at Allegany. 


? The conductor is also acting as head singer, so there is no one left to hand the stick tothemembers. They 
have to pass it to each other, snaking it across the floor. 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 17 


is down below one knee. Then they retreat jumping, turning halfway 
to either side, and they end with three short beats of their feet and 
return to their chairs. 

Eagle dancing is a tremendous muscular strain, and because of the 
required agility the role usually devolves upon younger men and boys. 
Among the Seneca there are still old men who are remembered for 
having been agile dancers. John Armstrong is crippled with rheuma- 
tism, but even the younger children know he was once a gifted dancer. 

The dancers and singers are expected to continue until someone 
strikes the signal pole, or floor; then they sit and all whoop softly. 

The second round of speeches is addressed to the host. 

Wood-eater struck the floor and spoke a second time. He dis- 
tributed crackers which, according to Hemlocks-lying-down, was the 
first time. He made the mistake of commencing the distribution in 
the clockwise direction, but Hemlocks-lying-down corrected him. 

Food distribution commences at the second round of speeches, then 
the dance starts. Presents must be given to the dancers. 

(5) Whoop and Song V.—The songs are composed by burden syl- 
lables, according to Hemlocks-lying-down, and they have no meaning. 

Amos Red Eye (Heron) hit the floor and spoke. 

This second round of speeches is really the first of the speeches 
addressed to the host, hoping he will have good luck, ete. 

(6) Whoop and Song VI.—Sam Fatty grabbed the stick and beat 
the floor. Silence followed; and he stood to speak, as each of the 
others had. Taking the basket by the handle he presented five 
crackers each to the first and second singers, eight to each of the 
dancers, and five each to the rest of the active members. The sing- 
ers and dancers were provided with boxes, as they would get most 
of them. The others put them in their pockets or on the bench 
behind them. This being done, the ceremony was resumed. 

(7) Whoop and Song VII.—Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch (Deer), being 
nearly asleep, if not entirely, did not reach for the striking stick 
quite quickly enough; and a dancer (whether or not it was because 
he was nearest to him, or because he was of the opposite moiety, I 
am not sure) commenced jumping toward him, only stopping and 
retreating when the old man struck the floor. Everyone laughed. 
The dancers are supposed to continue until the signal is given to 
stop, and therefore theoretically, the speaker must anticipate the 
end of the song. ‘He is supposed to strike before the whoop, or 
cry, or at the end of the song.’”’ However, Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch 
was sleepy. He distributed crackers. 

This is the first speech by an active member who was not an official. 

(8) Whoop and Song VIII.—Wood-eater (Bear), struck the floor, 
spoke and distributed crackers. This was his third speech. 


18 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLt. 156 


(9) Whoop and Song [X.—Corn-husker (Hawk), the whooper, 
struck the floor and spoke. He spoke only once. Most of the 
others spoke at least twice. He said afterward that he was sleepy, 
having worked hard all day. 

The crackers were well-nigh distributed. 

(10) Whoop and Song X.—Amos Red Eye (Heron) also spoke for 
the third time. It is noteworthy that the original three speakers 
are continuing in order, but that the whooper has inserted his speech 
between them, and a member has previously spoken between their 
second and third group of speeches. It amounts to there being but 
one member present who has not fulfilled an official role, namely, 
Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, who is partly asleep. Further, the second 
singer, William Cooper, did not speak; speaking is not required of 
singers.‘ 

(11) Whoop and Song XI.—Sam Fatty (Snipe), keeper of the crack- 
ers, making his third speech, distributed the last of the crackers from 
the basket. By this time the portions had diminished. 

Here Hemlocks-lying-down arose and, as conductor, announced 
that there would be two more songs before the dancers ‘aid down 
their fans and rattles’ and departed. The headman makes this 
announcement when the gifts are nearly distributed; then any addi- 
tional speakers must provide their own presents. Otherwise, they 
sing the last song which always precedes laying down the feather fans. 

(12) Whoop and Song XIT.—Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch (Deer), struck 
the floor, spoke and donated to the dancers the last of the crackers 
which had been given to him. 

(13) Whoop and Song XIII.—Wood-eater (Bear) beat the floor, 
spoke, made fun of Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch for having been asleep, and 
then presented his crackers to Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, who had given 
all of his to the dancers. 

(14) Whoop and Song XIV.—Following the dance, the birds laid down 
their ritual implements parallel on the floor, each placing the wand 
with its handle pointing toward his left hand with the fan feathers to 
the left, and the rattle handle pointing toward his right hand. They 
departed to dress. The conductor picked up the fans, suspended 
the rattles from the fan handles by loops attached to the rattle 
handles, and took the equipment into the kitchen where he rolled it into 
a bundle in a newspaper wrapper. 

Wood-eater, the preacher or speaker, returned thanks to those who 
had participated and asked the Spirit-forces to guide them and protect 
them from accident while returning home. This ended the ritual. 

# According to He-strikes-the-rushes, ‘‘when the messenger notifies the members, he assigns duties. He 
says to one, ‘you shall go and strike the stick and speak,’ meaning he shall merely speak; or at second 


thought, ‘you shall be the one who shouts’; or ‘you shall be singer.’ The singers are not supposed to make 
speeches; singing isenough.”’ (See invitation texts, p. 136.) 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 19 


An interim followed while the conductor and the hostess were 
arranging the feast. 

Francis Bowen, recipient of the ritual, spoke long and emotionally, 
almost repentantly, about the trouble he had been having with his 
neighbors. 

During the winter his children had stoned the neighbors’ children 
while returning from school. Later, two of these children died of 
measles. The parents consulted an old clairvoyant, who said that 
Francis had bewitched the children. Meanwhile he had been having 
trouble with his wife, and he beat her several times. She left him. 
Soon all her clansmen gathered forces with the irate neighbors and beat 
Francis until he was nearly dead. 

Soon after I arrived in the settlement, I was warned to avoid his 
place at night because he was carrying a gun and shooting at all prowl- 
ers. We heard shots on several occasions. Finally, one night in July, 
the neighbors were drunk, and we were awakened again by shots and 
the old Seneca war cry. There was swearing and the noise of gravel 
disturbed by running feet going east along the road toward the neigh- 
bors, but there were no casualties. 

This time Esther Fatty consulted the clairvoyant. ‘Francis was 
having trouble with his head.’’ He could not sleep. Hemlocks- 
lying-down conducted several rituals at her request. They met one 
morning at dawn and sang (gano’iowi’’) for him, because his mind was 
distraught with worry. Again, one evening Hemlocks-lying-down 
conducted the Bear Society dance for him. This present Eagle Dance 
was the third attempt to find a cure for his troubled mind. 

Toward the close of Francis’ remarks Sam Fatty (Snipe), his 
mother’s father; Wood-eater (Bear) (opposite moiety), priest and 
preacher of the Handsome Lake Revelation; Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch 
(Deer); and Amos Red Eye (Heron) (of the same moiety as Francis) 
successively walked over to him, grasped his hand and talked to him, 
giving advice and telling him to mend his ways, to take care of his 
family, and try to make up with his neighbors, to stay sober, and be of 
good mind, etc. In this manner they pledged their friendship. Their 
behavior was not patterned by membership in either moiety, but their 
role was rather that of old men and chiefs who traditionally act as 
counselors and peacemakers between the younger people. 

The power of Eagle Society ritual to cement social bonds of friend- 
ship is by no means small. It is, however, noteworthy that certain 
men present—Francis’ clansman and neighbor Corn-husker (Hawk), 
the whooper; William Cooper (Snipe), the second singer; and the 
headman, Hemlocks-lying-down (Turtle), either through dislike or 
diffidence did not pledge their friendship. However, all except Hem- 


20 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


locks-lying-down, who was acting as conductor and head singer, and 
the second singer and the dancers spoke during the meeting.® 


THE FEAST 


Meanwhile, Esther Fatty (Hawk), hostess, and the conductor had 
arranged the feast. A side of baked pork was brought in a pan and 
fed first to the dancers, who cried like a couple of crows, as one after 
the other they picked over it and tore off the best cuts. Hemlocks- 
lying-down passed it, going counterclockwise, to the members and 
finally to the dancers again, because they clamored for more. They 
were fed. 

The host, Francis Bowen, helped the conductor carry a wash boiler 
of corn soup, which they set in the middle of the room. At a signal 
from the conductor, ‘“‘Come now set down the pails,” everyone present 
slid a pail across the floor toward the soup. 

The recipient of the ritual, Francis Bowen, stirred the soup with a 
maple paddle and dished several ladlefuls into the conductor’s pail. 

Then the conductor filled each of the pails in turn, proceeding in a 
methodical counterclockwise direction, a ladleful to a pail until the 
soup was gone. ‘Two pails were filled for the house. Each member 
rescued his pail and departed, taking along the few crackers which he 
still had. The dancers, by this time, however, had most of them. 

Discussion.—We have purposely noted the clan membership and 
moiety alinement of those who attended. We find the principal ritual 
functionaries in the opposite moiety from the recipient and his mother, 
the sponsor. Informants specify that this must be. We have already 
noted absence of any spatial separation of the moieties. Although 
speakers joke with one another and offer gifts to the dancers and other 
speakers by way of recompense for the evil things they have said about 
them, in but one case (between Wood-eater and Stick-lodged-in-a- 
crotch) did ridicule cross moiety lines; Hemlocks-lying-down and other 
Coldspring informants claim this was accidental. Hemlocks-lying- 
down remembers speeches in ridicule of the other clan at Cattaraugus, 
but he has never observed the practice at Coldspring. Then, it would 
seem, the personalities involved are more important than membership 
in a particular clan. Wood-eater ridiculed Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, 
not because he was a Deer, but because he went to sleep. 

It is perhaps unfair to lay bare the therapeutic powers of a Seneca 
medicine society in the light of modern medical knowledge. Never- 
theless, when I heard 2 years afterward that Francis Bowen had been 
committed to a mental hospital, 1 wondered what type of aberration 
the resident physicians had discovered. Ihad built up some faith in 


6 “Again, the singers are not supposed to talk, but there is no restriction. Singing is enough. The con- 
ductor does not speak.’’— (He-strikes-the-rushes, June 1934.) 


FEnToNn] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 21 


the strength of the societies to bolster self-respect and provide esthetic 
pleasure for those who believe in their efficacy. Unfortunately Fran- 
cis Bowen’s difficulty required different treatment. 

He “was admitted to (the) hospital in an advanced stage of psy- 
chosis with syphilitic meningoencephalitis. In spite of intensive 
treatment, he has shown no response and the outlook is considered 
rather hopeless. It is too bad that he could not have had proper 
treatment sufficiently early instead of his tribal rites which you de- 
scribe. The majority of these cases can be much improved or recov- 
ered under proper treatment, if gotten early enough.” ° 


THE ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF RESTING-SKY’S CURE 


During the first day of the 1934 Midwinter Festival at Coldspring, 
Resting-sky, a Cayuga of the Turtle Clan, ‘‘put up” an anniversary 
of his cure by the Eagle Society (pl. 2). He selected Leads-him 
(ha’nodje‘ne’s), of the Snipe Clan, his wife’s sister’s husband, in the 
other moiety, to conduct the rite. My informant, Sherman Redeye 
(SRE), of the Snipe Clan (pl. 3), said it was the conductor’s duty to 
invite the ones whom Resting-sky intended should come. ‘The invita- 
tions were privately issued at the longhouse on the first day of the New 
Year’s Dance (Jan. 1, 1934). 

It is up to the conductor to provide singers and dancers. However, 
SRE (Snipe) did not know he was going to be second singer until he 
arrived. 

Resting-sky, the recipient,the one for whom the ceremony was per- 
formed, asked Wood-eater (Bear) in his own moiety to give thanks to 
the Spirit-forces and make the proper announcements. 

The conductor secured the services of Great-night, of the Wolf Clan, 
son of Hemlocks-lying-down (Turtle), as drummer or first singer, be- 
cause his father had already been chosen for Earth-hiller’s meeting 
that night. The conductor depended on SRE of the Snipe Clan, in 
the other moiety, to help Great-night sing, because he knew SRE 
would be there. 

The conductor also chose the dancers. The conductor had some 
difficulty securing dancers representing both moieties, because of 
Earth-hiller’s meeting. ‘The dancers are of equalstatus. They were 
both Bear Clan, but they are supposed to be of different moieties.” 
He could not find the proper people. Further, he should have had a 
speech made borrowing one of them from his moiety and then later 
returning him to his own clan, which he neglected to do. 

Resting-sky left the cooking to his wife, It-dips-water (pl. 5), and her 
sister, the conductor’s wife, the sisters of Corn-husker. 


§ Earle V. Gray, M. D., Superintendent, Gowanda State Homeopathic Hospital (correspondence, April 
9, 1937). 


22 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 
When they had finished their evening meal, the invited guests gath- 
ered up their tin pails and convened at the house of Resting-sky and 


It-dips-water. When they had all assembled, the conductor arranged 
the seating for the ritual (fig. 2). 


fLAGLE DANCE 


OR 
RESTING — SKY 


ENTRY 
| “x? o ‘3 
Sie ee 
=n N 1 YY 240 PRES. 
h RP SPLAAER 
SPEAKER ¥ PRIESF — ® SR 40 
? RECIPIENT G /VRST SINGER 
i 
; 7 
io bh iv ND SINGER 
ro) (Ee Se 
STOVE 
| @® 
O.0O 
Ti 
22-25 @ | conoucrTor = 
WOMEN 
Wy ¢ 
GET |), 
[| CUSTODIA 
WOMEN DANCER 
45 18 19 /7 2/ 
FAN ] STRIAING S7/CK 


DANCERS RATTLE CO BASKET OF CRACKERS 
HORN RATTLE @ O/SH OF TOBACCO 

DAUM [] 44S" B0/LER OF CORN Soup 
2RUM BEATER @® PORK FOR FEAST 


NV O78 


Ficure 2.—Floor plan of Eagle Dance for Resting-sky. 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 23 


The following people were present: 


Participation in the meeting* 


Menm- 
Moiety bership 
1. Resting-sky, Turtle Clan, recipient and sponsor__-_----------- II x 
2. Leads-him (ha’nodje-n¢’s), Snipe Clan, messenger and conductor. I xX 
3. Wood-eater, Bear Clan, speaker and priest__.____...---------- II x 
4. Greai-ment, Wol Clan: first singer... 22.2226 55-52 52 5— II x 
ot pinks, onipe Clan, second -smgerss 2 2a. Shae 2 oe I x 
6. Town-destroyer, Bear Clan; dancer. 25-242 II O 
7. He-watches-water, Bear Clan (Snorer’s son), dancer_-___------ II xX 
8. Ten-mornings, Bear Clan, first presentation speaker_____-_---- II xX 
9. Corn-husker, Hawk Clan, whooper_------------------------ I xX 
10. Wm. Cooper, Snipe Clan, second presentation speaker __-_--_--_-- I x 
11. Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, Deer Clan, gift custodian___..-__-_-- I xX 
12.) lakes-in-a-woman,; Snipe Clan! .- =. 2.2 <. so. ole I xX 
MatISMOree. AW kre .t Ste Sem co Pe th Se oe Po I ».« 
has CGleVNnee + Denver CHAtr see. asm, ts re ee Pee SR Ea ae II ».<¢ 
th Nallime-word. Cayies.af Vurtie Clan oe ee II x 
16. It-dips-water, Hawk Clan, matron and cook__---------------- I x 
17. Voice-above, Hawk Clan, my interpreter (pl. 4)_-__-_-_-_-_-- I O 
18. Full-of-thistles, Deer Clan, wife of 15_._._.._-..--..---_-_-_-- I x 
19. Sister of 16 and 9, Hawk Clan, matron and cook__------------ I x 
aUnoucK-on-water,, Beaver Clan. 2... 22-22-—-2oecyccae enc ce II O 
2 W.. INL ES. 


22-25. Sundry odd women and children in the bedroom with Duck- 
on-water’s wife, daughter of 16, who is sick, but this cere- 
mony is not for her. However, she may, as member, de- 
rive benefit from hearing the songs. 


*X=member; O=nonmember. 


Again, the following facts, bearmg upon the problem of moiety 
alinement, emerge from an analysis of the floor plan. The recipient 
secures a “headman” or conductor from the opposite moiety, but the 
first singer and the speaker and priest are of his own moiety. My 
informants explained this as convenience, necessity overriding conven- 
tion. The singers represent each moiety, but the dancers are of the 
same clan; however, one of them serves for the first moiety, and the 
preseptation speakers are of each moiety, conforming to native 
theory. The whooper and gift custodian are of the opposite moiety 
to the recipient, but this is accidental, although desirable. Again 
there is no spatial separation of the moieties into a dual division. 
Once more, the greater part of the functionaries and participants are 
the close relatives of the host or his wife, and all who had any active 
part, with the possible exception of one dancer, who, I think, belongs, 
are members of the society. My interpreter definitely stated that 
she does not belong. She merely went along with her husband to her 
mother’s house. 


24 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Buy 156 


THANKSGIVING 


The Speaker gave thanks to all the Spirit-forces from the earth to 
the Creator, and asked a blessing for all those present. He an- 
nounced the purpose of the gathering to renew the association of 
Resting-sky, who has been feeling badly, and the Dew Eagle, as he 
thought that it would help him. 


TOBACCO INVOCATION 


The conductor took the wands with the rattles attached from the 
drying rack above the stove and handed them to the speaker, or 
priest, in this case, who then stood before the fire, holding this ritual 
equipment so that the Dew Eagle, the bird to whom this ritual is 
addressed, would know he is talking to him. He committed the to- 
bacco to the fire a pinch at a time, employing the same prayer he had 
used for Francis Bowen, but he did not sing over the first song. 


ASSIGNMENT OF ROLES AND PARAPHERNALIA 


When he had finished, the priest returned the wands to the con- 
ductor, who in turn handed one set to Ten-mornings so that he 
might present them to He-watches-water (Bear), the dancer in his 
own moiety and, in this case, his clan. 

The headman appointed Corn-husker (Hawk) whooper. It is his 
duty to whoop (pa:a:’) just previous to, and as a signal for, the sing- 
ing.” He appointed William Cooper, Snipe Clan, to present the 
other wand and rattle to the second dancer, his own son, who was 
dancing for that moiety. Lastly, he appointed old ‘“‘Stick-lodged-in- 
a-crotch gift custodian, setting the basket of soda crackers before 
him. The former remarked that maybe the latter could stay awake 
if he had a job.” 

Here the dancers entered, coming downstairs in full costume with 
a round red spot painted on each cheek. Instead of wearing the old 
Seneca headdress with the single revolving feather, they wore quasi- 
Plains Indian headdresses, which they wear on the road with “Indian 
shows,” and leggings similar to chaps. All the old Seneca costumes 
have long since either gone into graves or they have been sold to mu- 
seums. Now, although the old people know what they should wear, 
the dancers wear makeshift “play’’ Indian costumes. The old people 
disliked my raising this question because it revealed a spurious element 
in the modern ceremonies which Wood-eater likes to regard as genuine. 


THE RITUAL 


(1) Corn-husker whooped and Song I commenced.—Ten-mornings 
beat the floor with the striking stick and returned it to the headman as 


He-strikes-the-rushes says this is the war whoop, but SRE denies this is the same as the war whoop 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 25 


the singing ceased. He made the conventional speech about being 
invited to dance, and then he handed the wand and rattle to his clans- 
man, the dancer. 

(2) Corn-husker whooped the second time and Song IT followed.— 
William Cooper (Snipe) of the other moiety, struck the floor and 
spoke. He said of his son, ‘‘ He is not as good a dancer as I am; I can 
still beat him. However, he thinks he is pretty good.”’ And then 
addressing his son: ‘“‘Do the best you can to beat that other dancer.” 
Then he handed him the fan and rattle. Then he passed the striking 
stick back to the conductor. 

(3) The Whooper uttered his third contribution and Song III com- 
menced.—Before the singing started the conductor had handed the 
cracker basket to Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, when he made the other 
appointments. During the third song the conductor handed the 
stick to him. We will call him gift-custodian, but he has no official 
title, according to my informants. He merely talks and distributes 
crackers, first, to the dancers; second, to the singers (this time the 
second singer first); third, to the whooper; fourth, to the host; and 
fifth, to the conductor; but this last is not necessary. 

(4) Whoop and Song IV.—The whooper always yelps before the 
songs. 

The dance begins here. 

In all of the songs for the Eagle Dance the drummer sings the song 
through once alone, accompanying himself on the water drum. The 
second time through, singing the same words, the second singer joins 
him, using the horn rattle. The dancers commence on the fourth 
song, just previous to the second round of speeches. They wait until 
both singers have been over the song together. 

SRE says, ‘“‘The dancers are supposed to sway on their chairs, then 
they jump down and crouch on the floor like Dew Eagles and advance 
by hopping, turning from side to side; when the song is repeated, they 
bend down weaving their shoulders in imitation of Dew Eagles picking 
food off the ground.” 

Then they retreat and the song ends with three quick, rapid beats, 
which the dancers duplicate with their feet and rattles. About this 
time the speaker strikes the floor or, anciently, a striped striking pole, 
and the music stops. 

Now the second round of speeches begins. 

According to informants, William Cooper spoke. ‘The stick went 
back to him, and then to Ten-mornings, and then to Stick-lodged-in- 
a-crotch.”’ According to my notes above, the order was Ten-mornings, 
William, and Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch in the first round. William 
made a speech to the man who put up the feast, Resting-sky, telling 


26 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


him to behave himself and have good luck. He said, ‘Behave your- 
self. I wish you luck that you may be fortunate and keep well.” 

(5) Whoop and Song V.—<According to informants, Ten-mornings 
said the same thing as William Cooper. 

(6) Whoop and Song VI.—Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch said the same 
thing; the previous time he said he was giving out crackers. However, 
my informants were somewhat reluctant to tell all that each one said, 
preferring to give me the pattern of what they were supposed to say. 

Up to this point crackers are distributed only to the dancers, singers, 
whooper, and the host, and possibly the conductor. This completes 
the second round of speeches. 

(7) Whoop and Song VII.—Now the floor is open for anyone to talk. 

Takes-in-a-woman (Snipe) made the same ritual speech as his pre- 
decessors and gave crackers to the same people. 

SRE says, ‘‘We do not make fun of the other moiety here when we 
talk in the Eagle Dance, but I have heard that they do it over at New- 
town [Cattaraugus Reservation] (Parker, 1913 b, pp. 124-125). 

(8) Whoop and Song VIII.—Snorer (Hawk), an old man who form- 
erly lived at Newtown and is generally out of sorts with everyone 
wherever he lives, talked at length of his present social status. 

I hear all kinds of stories about myself: that Iam pretending that I am sick. 
I wish whoever said these things would suffer like I am suffering; then maybe they 
would not say them. I only laugh when I hear these stories. I like to come to 
doings like this, only sometimes I am unable; I am so lame that I am hardly able 
to get about any more. 

(Afterward, to me my informant commented, ‘‘I did not listen to 
him. I do not like to hear things like that at a medicine society 
meeting. It makes bad feelings, this gossip. Snorer always says, 
‘Everybody talks too much’; he even says that in the longhouse.’’) 

Snorer distributed crackers to the necessary functionaries, including 
the conductor with whom he is at times in good rapport, and the latter 
has much respect for the old tyrant’s erudition, which is considerable. 

(9) Whoop and Song [X.—The conductor passed the stick to Corn- 
husker, the whooper, who made the customary remarks which conven- 
tion demanded. He distributed the crackers to those whom he 
should, and to me, a guest, saying that I had come a long way to be 
amongst them once more and I must be getting hungry. He further 
said ‘He is an Indian in spirit, even if his face is white.” (The 
remark illustrates the pleasant raillery which pervades the whole 
affair.) 

(10) Whoop and Song X.—Cold-voice (Beaver) struck for silence. 
This was his first speech and one is not supposed to extemporize 
until the second. 

(11) Whoop and Song XI.—Wood-eater (Bear), who had made the 


FanTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 27 


first prayer of thanksgiving and the tobacco-throwing invocation, 
addressed Resting-sky, the host. 

“Hach man speaks differently, but in the main he says about the 
same thing to the man for whom the feast is held’? (SRE). 

(12) Whoop and Song XIJI.—Falling-world, a Cayuga of the Turtle 
Clan, ‘‘did not do much preaching to his host, but he talked about his 
wife. His jokes are too strong to suit the public. My ears would 
burn if S. said things like that about me. He said, ‘My wife is 
always kicking me in the shins so that I will be laid up with sore 
legs® and she will be able to attend the New Year’s dance alone. She is 
cross and is always hitting me with something.’ All the time he 
was saying that his wife was there. (However, she seemed amused.) 
He then told Resting-sky and my mother, It-dips-water, to remain 
together until either one of them dies” (CRE). 

(13) Whoop and Song XIII.—SRE gave the signal and talked. He 
said what I have quoted above (see (4)). Later, being my informant, 
he added, ‘‘If he [Resting-sky] is sick, it (my wish)is supposed to make 
him well.”” SRE was the second singer, and did not have to speak. 
The first singer, Great-night, did not speak, but it is not required of 
the first singer. He is a peculiar chap, inclined to moroseness, and is 
of a vengeful disposition. He is a fine singer and, like his father, 
a fine craftsman. At times he is quite jovial. However, singing 
is enough and the first singer has fulfilled his duty without speaking. 

(14) Whoop and Song XIV.—It-dips-water (Hawk), wife of the 
host, commenced to talk, but her sister started kidding her and she 
was unable to finish. 

(15) Whoop and Song XV.—Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch (Deer) woke 
up in time to talk a third time. The headman was about to prod him 
with the stick. This elicited much amusement and laughter. He 
began to poke fun at Corn-husker (Hawk), the whooper, a man of 
his own moiety, by alluding to the “possum” which Corn-husker had 
claimed, at a previous Eagle Dance, that he met every time he went 
into the woods hunting. Corn-husker said that when the possum 
smiled at him he had good luck. (Corn-husker had told about his 
possum at a meeting, held the week before in the same house, for SRE 
and his father, Wood-eater. This is one of many stories Corn-husker 
is reputed to have told to amuse people. He always says his stories 
do not hurt anyone, since they are not true. They are merely in- 
tended as jokes.) Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch concluded by wishing 
Resting-sky would live to grow old. 

8 Sore legs is a symptom of being sick with the disease the Eagle causes. Whereas the content of his speech 
is different from that of Snorer, in character, itis thesame. They both came from Cattaraugus, and he is 
more true to his local tradition than Snorer in ridiculing someone in the opposite moiety, who happens to be 


his wife. However, he does not exalt his own clan. 
982306—53 3 


28 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


There were no crackers left by this time, so the speaker promised 
Resting-sky a 5-cent cigar the next time they were in the city together. 
Everyone laughed, knowing his reputation for stinginess. 

“Everyone knew he was safe, for they will never be in the city 
together, not now anyway” (CRE). 

(16) Whoop and Song XVI.—Corn-husker reached for the stick, 
as was expected, and made his second utterance by way of rebuttal. 
Naturally his subject was “my possum.”’ ‘People make more of a 
story than what I said, because they know it is not true. You all 
know me. I am the worst liar around here. I wish you would not 
talk any more about my possum when anyone has another meeting 
like this.’”? Then he addressed his blessing to the host. 

The dancers, by this time, had most of the crackers and had stored 
them under their chairs in the original cracker boxes provided by the 
host. Nevertheless, Corn-husker had a good supply given to him, 
in the capacity of whooper, and he gave these to the dancers, singers, 
and host, saying, “I am afraid to carry them: a ghost might chase 
me.’? He donated two crackers apiece to the functionaries. Corn- 
husker is frequently troubled by ghosts coming up behind him on 
the road.® 

(17) Whoop and Song XVII.—This was Bill Cooper’s (Snipe) 
third speech. ‘I do not really wish that Resting-sky will grow too 
old, as Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch hopes. When people grow too old 
they are not able to help themselves or do anything.” (My inform- 
ants interpolated: Takes-in-a-woman (Snipe) had an Eagle Dance 
meeting once and Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch said, ‘‘When a man becomes 
old, every time he eats a good meal he gets sleepy and goes to sleep.’’) 
William Cooper concluded, ‘I think ‘Flying’ [the old man’s boyhood 
name] must be pretty well off and full all the time, because every 
time I look at him he is always asleep. He must be filled up all 
the time, for he always goes to sleep.” 

I might add here that Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch or ‘lying’ is one 
of the head religious officers in his moiety. He is usually asleep in 
councils and during the preaching of the Handsome Lake Revelation, 
of which he is one of the custodians. It makes a good joke. He 
usually wakes up, however, in time to drowsily intone his contri- 
butions. 

(18) Whoop and Song XVIII.—By this time the dancers were 
becoming tired. Ten-mornings (Bear) talked for the third time. 
His subject was the longhouse, and he urged the people to go there 
and help out the leaders, meaning the conductors, Levi Snow (Heron) 


* See Case II, p 43. He referred here to the typical magie flight incident in Seneca folklore where the 
hero casts out gifts behind him to distract his pursuers. It is believed that if chased by ghosts, one may 
impede their speed by throwing bread to them. 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 29 


and his own brother, Arrow (Bear), who are running the New Year’s 
Festival. Ten-mornings is a Faith-keeper. Then he concluded, 
“Resting-sky is lucky in having so many people come here. One 
man came from way off in the East |a jibe at me]. I live just a 
little way this side of him. [He lives east of the longhouse, across 
the river in Crick’s Run.] He came all the way to see these doings; 
it is a good idea. The conductor came from way up near Red House 
to help out Resting-sky, the host. I wish the meeting would last 
all night.’’ 

(19) Whoop and Song XIX.—Cold-voice made his second speech. 
He preached to Resting-sky, joking him; then he said, ‘‘He has 
lost his brother (died last winter) and sister and is all alone. He 
should try and forget that and be good and go on with his work and 
live peaceably with his wife.”’ 

The conductor rose and said the following song would be the last, 
the one for laying down the wands or fans. 

(20) Whoop and Song XX.—Following this last song the dancers 
left their rattles and fans on the floor and retired. At meetings 
like this one “when there are a good many speakers who fight for 
the striking stick, the dancers do not have to work hard. Other- 
wise, they must continue until someone strikes the pole or floor. 

“The host should immediately stand and thank those who have 
said good things to him. Resting-sky did not do this. He should 
stand and thank the people of both moieties who have striven to 
beat each other at wishing him good luck.” 

Resting-sky, the host, turned to Wood-eater, the Speaker, asking 
him to talk once more. Wood-eater gave thanks to all the people 
who had helped: (1) the dancers, (2) the singers, (8) the conductor, 
(4) all the people who came to talk, (5) all the women (members), 
and (6) all those who came to look on. Then he asked the four 
“angels” to help them to arrive safely home, that no accidents befall 
them on their way. He gave thanks to the “‘maker’’ without calling 
him by name; and he hoped that everyone would be well by the next 
dawn. ‘Let everybody in this crowd give thanks to each other.” 
It is finished. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE FEAST 


The distribution of the feast by the conductor follows. First, 
he hands out seven pieces of meat: one apiece to the dancers; one 
each to the singers; one to the whooper; a woman put one in the 
conductor’s pail; and he gave the last piece to the tobacco-thrower. 
Second, there was a pig’s head, but in this case it was a roast shoulder 


10 “Jokes about long journeys were common in the old Newtown meetings.” Snorer usually has this 
meeting early in the morning. Anciently the society met out-of-doors at dawn. 


30 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156 


of pork, as a head was not available. The host has the first bite, 
then the dancers, singers, and last, the crowd. It is passed in a 
counterclockwise direction ‘“‘to the right,” that is, the conductor 
always has the benches on his right as he proceeds. ‘To go around 
to the left,’ clockwise, is considered incorrect and means death or evil. 

Snorer follows the old tradition of picking up the head in his hands, 
turning it over and biting it; others, in the newer school, tear off a 
piece between their fingers. The older men most consistently grasp 
the whole head and tear off portions with their teeth. Everyone is 
supposed to say ga’’ga’’ in imitation of the crow, and especially the 
greatraven. My informant said that the first time he sang he took an 
ear and ripped it clear to the nose. Everyone laughed. 

Anciently the head was served in a bark bowl, or the conductor 
merely passed it in his hands. People may say ga’’’ to make someone 
stop. The young people object to Snorer’s dirty hands and avaricious 
temperament. ‘He used to go outside during the meeting and then 
return. He never washed his hands, and when he handled the pig’s 
head many objected. Everyone said he had dirty hands.” 

When Snorer has been conductor he has increased his evil reputation. 
“He used to pass the head around once and then put it aside for himself. 
He has earned the name gwi’sgwisgo-wa” [the great hog]. Conductors 
are supposed to pass the feast around until it is entirely finished, or 
the company is satisfied.” 

When chided, Snorer has threatened to return to Newtown, Catta- 
raugus Reservation, ‘‘but the people over there say they do not want 
him back because then they could not have any medicine meetings, 
because he takes all the pig’s head for himself.” 

The third part of the feast is always corn soup. This is the same 
type as cooked for False-faces. It is hulled-corn soup made from the 
white squaw corn. It is the duty of the host to ladle some from the 
wash boiler into the conductor’s pail. The conductor then calls for 
the members to set down their pails and he fills all the pails brought 
by the members and guests, which they have shoved out on the floor. 
Some is dished out for the house. At a signal each person retrieves 
his pail and goes home. 

Discussion.—Even at pain of some repetition, I have presented the 
raw data from two meetings which served to establish the frame on 
which, during later field work, I hung most of the meat of this paper. 
This particular meeting not only demonstrates how consistently the 
local pattern of a ritual is repeated from time to time, but there are 
also several interesting discrepancies in the matter of required moiety 
alinement which are at variance with native theory. This type of 
information should stand as a caution against the ethnologist’s tend- 
ency to oversystematize his description of a native culture. There 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 31 


are rules, but they are not always adhered to. We have also shown 
how Corn-husker, Wood-eater, and Snorer found expression for their 
individuality in this Eagle Dance. ‘Truly, the type of thing they did 
was patterned by tradition, by the history of the ceremony, but the 
content of their behavior as individuals had its roots in each one’s 
individual history. What Goldenweiser has called “involution,” or 
the telescoping of repeated behavior patterns, is well illustrated in this 
ritual. The same songs, the same type of speeches, the same old jokes 
are all heard again and again; but not so much what one does, but how 
one does it is the important thing to the individual participant in the 
culture. This constant repetition at times is even boring to the Indians. 
He-strikes-the-rushes told me that one of the reasons he moved away 
from Allegany was because he became “sick and tired’’ of the con- 
tinual repetition of the same old jokes at successive Eagle Dances 
which that winter followed one another night after night. 


LATER CELEBRATIONS AT ALLEGANY 


The ritual of the Eagle Dance is gone through many times in the 
course of a year at Coldspring, so that participants come to sense the 
pattern of sequence which guides the program and to forget the details 
after a meeting. The same process affects the observer. At first he 
sees all the detail and misses the pattern. As he learns he looks for 
the fine points and forgets the details. My own observations of Eagle 
Dance at Coldspring have been supplemented by those of Charles E. 
Congdon, of Salamanca, N. Y.; M. H. Deardorff, of Warren, Pa.; and 
the late Dr. Frank G. Speck (Speck, 1950). We have all shared 
observations in correspondence and discussion, and Speck’s first im- 
pressions are published and supplemented by the account of the Seneca. 

Clayton C. White has been Deardorff’s principal annalist at Cold- 
spring, and his records of ceremonial events are quite accurate and 
clearly portray the ‘“‘doings.”” His language is equally picturesque, 
but requires some editing for the general reader. His notes describe 
two meetings of the Eagle Society in February 1942: a family feast, 
and a cure for a neighbor’s daughter. 

Wednesday Evening, February 4, 1942, we have a gane’’gwi’e-’, or Eagle Dance. 
This [is] Big Bird Dance. We have [it] at our home. [Two leaders were appointed] 
William Cooper and Lendsay Doudy. These two are [supposed to] notify to the 
Bird Dancer members to come to the home of Mrs. A. E. White in the evening. 

First Albert Jones made the Thanking Speech. And [continuing] on after that, 
he also [told] the Members who are to be Benefit [beneficiaries] of this dance. There 
are four [such] persons: Alice E. White, Clayton White, Sally George, Rudolph 
George. ‘‘ . . . and now you members know where to be wishing for it [to whom 
to address your pleas] to have good luck.” 

And after this he also [tended] to throwing the IndianTobacco in the Fire. And 
[the priest through his prayers is believed] to be notifying the Birds. These are 


32 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLn. 156 


Big Birds and they are flying way above the clouds. (So this is not the Eagle. 
For this Bird don’t come to the ground. The Birds are bright red and some are 
white as snow. The Red Bird is more powerful.) 

And the singers are Richard J. John, and the helper, Jake Logan. 

And there are four dancers: Avery Jimmerson, John Deer, Kenneth Fatty, 
and Wilton Cooper. 

There was a good crowd and all were good speakers. 

And the Flute Singer, Walter Jimmerson. 

And the Halloa [Hollerer-Whooper], Cornelius Abram. 

Some interesting facts on participation can be gleaned from Clayton 
White’s record. It was a family feast for members of the Wolf clan, 
in the lineage of Alice White, including her son, her daughters’ daugh- 
ter, and the latter’s son. She selected as conductor William Cooper 
(Snipe Clan), a man of the opposite moiety. Since it was to be a large 
affair with four dancers, the conductor had an assistant, or coconduc- 
tor of the opposite moiety, L. Doudy (Beaver Clan), on the same side 
as thesponsor. The speaker and the priest, Albert Jones (Snipe Clan), 
is of the opposite moiety, but the relationship may be fortuitous, since 
he is a good speaker and possibly the only one available. But note 
that the singers are of opposite moieties—R. J. John (Beaver) and Jake 
Logan (Snipe)—the first being of the sponsor’s side. But Dick John 
is a good singer (cf. Kurath’s transcription of his records, and my 
text below). 

The dancers were equally divided between moieties—two Bears and 
two Hawks. It would have been nice to have Clayton’s account of the 
speeches, but that they were routine, I judge from his omitting them. 

But note the presence of a “Flute Singer,’’? Walter Jimmerson of 
Wolf Clan, who presumably blew the whistle in imitation of the birds. 

The last role, whooper, fell to the Beaver Clan. 

In general, it may be observed that custom has assigned the prin- 
cipal roles to persons of the opposite moiety to the sponsors, and dual 
roles are equally shared between moieties. But the success of the 
ceremony depends on a good singer. 

Of perhaps greater interest are Clayton White’s answers to some 
questions which Deardorff put to him concerning Eagle Dance. He 
traces the origin of the rite to the warpath, he relates how Handsome 
Lake, the Seneca prophet, received supernatural sanction for its con- 
tinuance, and how it survives as a curing society, Membership comes 
through a dream about the mythical birds which he describes again, 
and he concludes by citing recent proof of the bird’s power. 

And now about the Gane’’gwi’e’’, or the Eagle Dance. [It derives from] , . . 
the Indian War days. These Big Birds gave their full power and help to the Sen- 
eca Indian Men in their fighting. But [after the Indian wars were over] when 
[in 1799] the Four Angels (the messengers of the Creator) were teaching to the 
Handsome Lake, they tell him to tell his people that this Big Bird Dance shall 
be changed [into] the way they are doing it these days. And so they changed it. 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 33 


And the Four Angels fully approved. Before the Four Angels [talked] to the 
Handsome Lake, the Seneca only talked [in meetings] of how to fight, of how to 
scalp, and they also [were] telling of how many scalps a man has. In those days 
he is a great Indian if he have a great many scalps. This is why the Four Angels... 
prohibited [boasting on scalp records], and they say, “This will stop, and it must 
be changed.”” And so the People take it [and do so] the Four Angels say. 

And now at this time the people only [have Eagle Dance and speak] to wish [the 
sponsor] to have good luck, and to tell the Big Birds to take it away all the Bad 
Luck and the Bad Enemy coming to the Persons who are having a Bird Dance. 
And also they have a little Joke. So this is the way it is now. To this Big 
Bird Dance the Four Angels have given full approval. It is because they have 
great power. They have power to help in this world even if the person is very 
sick. The Big Birds have power to help the sick person to get well again if the 
person belongs to the Bird Society. 

Mostly [membership in] this Society is come in by the Dream. And also some 
of them come by the Fortune Teller. And if this Big Bird is not very [satisfied 
with the behavior] of the Person who belongs to this Society, it is just as bad. 
Because this Big Bird has great power to bring the bad luck and bad Enemy to 
to the Person who is not doing right by them. 

Now I am going to [tell] the truth. This Big Bird is not the Eagle. There is 
another kind of bird. This kind of bird does not come down to the ground but 
once in a great while, but when they do come down to the ground, they mostly 
come to the top of a High Hill or a Mountain. And this Bird is of a Bright Red 
Color, and there is another all White Color. There are two kinds. But they are 
the same Nation. This Bird in truth has a big power. 

Our people have good evidence [of this] just last Wednesday night, February 18, 
1942. Mr. Cornelius Abram and his little daughter had this Bird Dance to their 
home. And this little Baby Girl is very sick for about a week. So they got the 
Fortune Teller (Sara Snow of Quaker Bridge) to look of what is the trouble to 
this little baby girl. [This was a last resort] Because the [White] Doctor can not 
understand [the nature of] what is [troubling] this little girl. So [the parents resort 
to] the Fortune Teller. She says, ‘‘This little baby girl is not sick, but she will 
pass away very soon now if you do not have Bird Dance. There is a Big Bird 
[hovering] above her. Hear now [this] is on account [of the fact] that Cornelius 
Abram belongs to this Bird Society, and he didn’t have the Bird Dance for a 
long time now. So this Big Bird got tired of waiting for him too long now. So 
the Big Bird got to this little Baby girl’s.” 

So after this Fortune Teller tell them, and they hurry to have it the Bird Dance. 
And this time that the little baby girl is better. Now that is good proof of [the 
fact] about this Big Bird have a power. [Clayton C. White to M. H. Deardorff, 
1942.] 


If Handsome Lake foresaw that the Bird Dance would change from 
a ritual for boasting on scalp records to a medicine society of persons 
whom the Big Birds had accepted for membership by making them 
sick, he probably did not anticipate that the Society would include 
non-Indians. I can think of no better measure of acceptance than 
the ceremonial sanction of the Eagle Dance for three adopted White 
men. Adoption in the Turtle Clan has been followed by acceptance 
in the Eagle Society. Congdon, Deardorff, and Speck have all been 
accorded both honors. The first two gentlemen were taken in as 


34 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLt. 156 


“friends”; the last had a dream, was accorded a ‘“‘cure,’’ and a year 
later a renewal. 

The only record I have of an Eagle Society meeting held at Chaun- 
cey Johnny John’s in August 1942 to celebrate a ‘friendship’ between 
“Big-canoe” and ‘‘He-is-carrying-an-ax,’”’ consists of a series of photo- 
graphs taken at crucial stages of the ceremony. The photographs 
were made to illustrate this monograph. As illustrations they are 
not all successful, but the series covers the ritual pattern at the 
following points: 

(1) Invocation. Wood-eater, speaker and priest, goes to the stove 
and puts tobacco in the fire and prays to the Dew Eagles to protect 
these friends with long life; Deep-night, the conductor, sits by during 
the invocation. Others listen. (Two strings of Indian tobacco 
(Nicotiana rustica L.) hang over the stove drying) (pl. 6, 1). 

(2) After the presentation of fans to the dancers, the second round 
of speeches is addressed to the Dew Eagles. Members sit with bowed 
heads listening intently to Chief Jesse Armstrong (Bear Clan); 
Leslie Bowen (Hawk Clan), dancer; C. E. Congdon; M. H. Deardorff ; 
Richard Johnny John, first singer; and Ed. Coury, helper (pl. 7, 1). 

(3) The Eagle Dancers crouch and sway with the song. Singers, 
speaker, and host sit along the wall. Note the feathered fans and 
tiny horn rattles which here replace the usual gourd rattle at Cold- 
spring. The striking stick lies on the floor (pl. 7, 2). 

(4) Each speaker puts down the striking stick, which is a cane, 
speaks, and distributes crackers from a splint market basket to the 
dancers. 

(5) On the last song, the dancers lay down the feather fans and 
retire (pl. 6, 2). 

(6) The conductor passes the pig head counterclockwise, starting 
with speaker and singers, who cry like crows, and pick at the meat 
(pl. 8, 7). 

(7) At a cry from the conductor, the members put down their pails, 
which he fills with hulled-corn soup from a wash boiler, going counter- 
clockwise, a dip to a pail, until all the pails are filled equally. 

(8) The members pick up their pails and scatter like birds in every 
direction (pl. 8, 2). Neighboring Whites often ask why Indians are 
continually carrying pails on the road at night. 

Speck, following a convenient dream of “large birdlike bodies .. . 
across the sky in rapid flight,”’ was feted by the Eagle Society on the 
night of March 10, 1949. Fast-talker of the Beaver Clan was his 
host. Speck’s account, published in Primitive Man (1950), lists the 
participants, and gives their Indian and English names, their clan and 
moiety, and role in the ceremony. He also gives the seating arrange- 
ment. The arrangements seem to have preserved the proper balance 


FEntTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 35 


between the sponsor or patient and the main role fulfillments. An 
exception to the rule of conductor being of the opposite moiety to the 
person honored may be noted, but singers and dancers were properly 
apportioned between moieties. 

Speck’s account of the performance of the ritual leaves nothing to be 
desired. As always he is the master of detail and catches the essence 
of behavior even when he may not understand the language. Speck 
was well prepared by having studied the Cayuga version of the rite. 
The preparations and ritual equipment are quite detailed even as to 
cost. What is impressive, moreover, is the detailed reporting of 
speeches in his honor. What participants said to Speck in Seneca and 
was afterward interpreted to him convey the close relationship between 
tutelary and patient. One speaker describes the birds as being of 
three colors, though not seen since White discovery. The birds 
appear only in dreams and may be reached with sacred tobacco. 
The bird would help him in his work. He is assured of the good will 
of the members. 

Another speaker, who always seizes such opportunities to preach a 
sermon, admonishes the members on their sacred duty and reminds 
Big Porcupine (Speck) to renew his membership from time to time 
with a feast. 

Speck encountered the same difficulty I have experienced in after- 
ward getting speakers to recall their remarks. Once a ceremony is 
over, it is finished and participants do not want to go over it. There 
must be, however, as the records of meetings indicate, individuals who 
suffer from a retentive memory and lay up speeches for the next 
meeting. (See the case of Snorer, Corn-husker who wanted them to 
forget his possum, and He-strikes-the-rushes at Tonawanda.) 

Apples as well as crackers were distributed after speeches. When 
the presents gave out, money was substituted. One woman speaker 
gave him a dime to treasure as ‘‘medicine.” The meeting Speck 
attended was unusual in having two women who spoke. Although 
permitted to speak, it has been my experience that women almost 
never speak at the Eagle Dance. 

Nothing else in Speck’s account is extraordinary except his con- 
cluding comment: ‘‘Memories of the Eagle Dance given for my 
benefit . . . bring forth soft and pleasant thoughts marking a mile- 
stone in an ethnologist’s background of experience . . . I can aver 
that their ceremonial ministrations gave me benefit .. .”’ (Speck, 
1950, p. 59). Think how the Iroquois must feel, for they take their 
religion seriously. 

Another Eagle Dance was held for Big Porcupine at the Midwinter 
Festival of 1950. Membership in a Seneca medicine society carries 
an annual obligation of renewal, else the person becomes sick. Speck 


36 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ Buu. 156 


and the Seneca felt that he had been improved by the first ceremony. 

As a member of the Eagle Society, Speck was given a set of feather 
fans, and the next year he was to receive a set of rattles which were 
being made for him and which he was to put in use each time he 
sponsored a feast for the Society. Accordingly, he brought the Eagle 
bundle with him when he came up from Philadelphia to Red House 
on January 20, 1950, for the Midwinter Festival at Coldspring 
Longhouse. 

Speck wore himself out in the preliminaries and collapsed on the 
first day of the Festival, January 22. When I arrived the following 
Friday for the sixth night, when the Husk Faces arrive to climax the 
ceremonies, the Longhouse officials were greatly concerned over 
Speck’s condition. 

Speck lay ill throughout the Festival. On the last day of the 
Festival, four of the ritual holders, two men and their wives, accom- 
panied me to see Speck. His last request to me was a modest 
concern over an obligation to renew Eagle Dance. It is gratifying 
that his Seneca friends were impelled to go through with the ceremony 
while Speck was yet so near them. They sensed that he too felt it 
would be worth while. One of them quietly took the feather fans 
and the other couple accepted responsibility to arrange for the cere- 
mony and prepare the feast—cook the corn and bean soup, boil the 
meat, provide apples and crackers for the dancers, and get Indian 
tobacco for the invocation. They knew that the sponsor was ob- 
viously near the end of his road, but, the old people say, ‘‘Eagle Dance 
has revived persons before, even on the brink of the grave.” At 
least Speck was able to return to Philadelphia before he took the long 
trail a week later (Seneca of Coldspring Longhouse, 1950, pp. 60-61; 
Hallowell, 1951). 

Perhaps our finest record of an Eagle Dance is the account by the 
Seneca of Coldspring Longhouse of the Eagle Dance held at the home 
of Albert and Geneva Jones, Wednesday night, February 1, 1950, in 
which the Society did its best—‘‘all we could’’—for a sick member. 
The account was transmitted afterward to Mrs. Speck by the Indians 
ibid., pp. 61-64). A big crowd attended the ‘‘doings” and a record 
was kept of what was said. The pattern of the ritual stands out 
clearly in this account: 

1. Greeting and Thanksgiving to Creator, and his workers. 

2. Tobacco invocation to Dew Eagle, asking his help. 
Members smoke tobacco. 

3. Introductory songs. 
First speaker presents fan and rattle to dancer. © 
Same procedure for second dancer. 


Third speaker puts out crackers and apples for the members to use in striking. 
Urged not to waste the music and use a certain stick. 


FENTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 37 


4. Dance starts on the fourth song. 
Twelve speakers interrupt as many songs by striking. 
Appeal to sponsor to keep on believing and express faith that Dew Eagles 
have power and will to help him. Sponsor will be up and around soon. 
Another puts his voice with the one who threw tobacco. A young man 
imparts the analogy of his own vigor. Even the timid speak. ‘‘Sa-da- 
ga-ah will help you because you believe in them. I ask them to remove 
all obstacles from your path, keep winds pure around you and keep you 
healthy. They helped you a year ago and they will again. They are 
powerful and they know you are thinking of them. (To the people.) 
You came to see the New Year’s dance and to have Ga-nay-gwa-ayk—but 
was stricken with sickness. You are a firm believer in it so he is sure 
the doings here will help you as it did before.’”? (Passes out crackers.) 
5. Closing. The conductor thanks the members for coming out of respect for 
their friend. He adds his voice to the hope of others. The crackers and 
apples are now all distributed. The sponsor ‘‘is not here to receive your 
individual medicine.” 
6. The fourteenth song is for laying down the fans. 
The speaker now thanks the participants: dancers, singers, all who took 
part. 
The speaker thanks the Creator and the four messengers to see that all the 
people get home safely. 
7. Feast. 
Meat is passed. 
Corn soup is given out. 


THE SONGS " 


The songs of the Eagle Dance as they are sung at Coldspring were 
recorded in 1941 for the Library of Congress by Richard Johnny John 
and his grandfather, Chauncey. Water drum and horn rattle are 
the respective instruments of the singer and his assistant. These 
are the old man’s songs (Record No. 56, Fenton Collection of 1941, 
L. C.). They were shortened for purposes of recording to get them 
all on two sides of a record. 


(1) yowehanee yowehanee 
yo’owehane yo’owehane yo’owehane :][DC, repeat first word five times 

and repeat.] 

(2) weya’a weya’a wahe’eya’a heyo’ ng’:] 
ya’a’a, heyo-ng’ 
weheya heyong:] [DC] [End] 

(3) yohong’9’e yohong yohong 
yohong’9’9 yohanondiyawe’i 
hong’o’o : (6 times)] [DC] 

(4) weya :] waheya weheng :] 
ya’a heyong ;] 

(5) yahowe hane’i :] wehane:]] 
yahowe hane’i wehane:][DC] [End] 


11 For the musical notation, see Kurath’s supplement to this paper. 


38 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


(6) ya’aha heyo’ong heyong :] 
weya heya heyo’ong :]] 
(7) nigosa nigosa’a hanehe:] 
yowega’nowe’e ya hanehe :] [DC] [End] 
(8) yahaheyong :] yahaheyono 
yahaheyong yahaheyong:] 4 times :]] [DC] 
(9) yaheyong’9 heyong :] 
waheya heyong heyong:]] 
(10) wiya’a ha’a’a:] wiya ha’/ne-he- 
yo’o howiya ha’a’a 
wiya’a ha’a’a:] wiya hane-he::]] 
(11) yaweyong weyong :] 
waheya yaweyong weyong :] [DC] 
(12) hongdiyo ya’a he’e :] “Shortest song of all; different. 
ya’a honodiyo ya’a :]] 
(13) weyaneng weyaneng’g he’e’e 
ya’a, he’e’eh weyaneng’o 
weyaneng’9 he’e’e [he’e] : ] 
(14) wigosa wigosa’a hanehe:] (Record 56 A) 
yowega’nowe’e ya hanehe :] [DC] End] 
(15) neyanen¢’ goyaha’a nehe :] 
neyanene’ goyaha’a nehe :]-yeh :] [DC] [End] 
(16) wahe’ya’a heyo’ong :] 
wiye’e’e :] wahe’ya’a 
wahe’ya’a heyo’ong :] [DC] 
(17) ya’ne ya’ne 
goya haweya goya’haweyong’9 :] 
(18) Last song for laying down the feather fans. The third and last time, slower, 
when they lay down the fans. 
yowadjine gono’odiyawe 
ya’ ha’he-heyo’ong 
yowadjine gong’odiyawe heyong:] [DC 3 times] 
End: yahowiha: ha he:- 
heyo’ong 


THE PARTICIPATING PERSONALITIES AT COLDSPRING 


THE EAGLE DANCE AS A VEHICLE FOR PERSONALITY EXPRESSION 


When one knows the actual people who perform the Eagle Dance 
ritual, individual behavior variations within a more or less formal- 
ized ceremony are expected, and the form and content of two meet- 
ings will differ somewhat by their presence or absence. I have select- 
ed five men and a woman from Coldspring whom I know fairly well. 
Three of the men were present at both meetings I attended at Cold- 
spring. Two, Wood-eater (pl. 9) and Corn-husker (pl. 10), performed 
the same offices twice. Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch (pl. 11) partici- 
pated in both meetings, and Snorer (pl. 12) was present only at the 
second. Hemlocks-lying-down (pl. 13) was conductor and singer for 
the first meeting, but his son replaced him as head singer at Resting- 
sky’s “doings.” He sang that night at Earth-hiller’s (pl. 14), who 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 39 


attended neither of the two described meetings, but, because she also 
held a meeting on the second night of the new year, and because she 
leads another faction in the community, she limited Resting-sky’s 
meeting by a prior choice of dancers. 

The reader will find other personality references in the proceedings 
of the actual meetings. 

No attempt is made here to analyze and classify these individuals 
according to any of the systems of psychiatry. In the first place, I am 
operating with an insufficient amount of biographical data. Further- 
more, by training I am not an analyst. Second, the field work 
predated the several series of projective tests now inuse. The purpose 
of these sketches is different. They serve to introduce six individuals 
whose past history of interpersonal relations affected their attitudes and 
behavior during two Eagle Dance meetings, which I attended. I have 
assembled observations and remarks around these selected individuals 
that in some way explain each one’s position and status with reference 
to the group. Elsewhere in the text, particularly in the general chap- 
ter, I cite their experiences in joining the Eagle Society; I note gaps in 
their knowledge and quote their accounts as they gave them to me. 
My informants were the best available. In fact, at Coldspring they 
included all the leaders and many passive participants of the rituals. 
What these individuals actually did and said in meetings of the Eagle 
Society was determined first by the history of the ritual, a cultural 
phenomenon prescribing limits to their behavior, and secondly by 
their reactions to each other as determined by their own individual 
histories within the life at Coldspring community. The subjects of 
these cases have all since died and the cases afford a general perspective 
on Iroquois personality. 

I endeavored to learn how Seneca culture has affected several indi- 
viduals who manifest it differently. The culture passes the same 
songs and prayers along from generation to generation, but the indi- 
vidual professor is noted not because he knows this or that song, but 
because of how well he executes it. Naturally, some individuals have 
specialized in certain types of learning or arts, say, herbalism or 
basketry. Also, in a broken-down culture there is real compensation 
to be derived from knowing about the old things. There is fear of 
being scoffed at by the bewildered younger generation, but most 
everyone respects the wisdom of old people. A representative study 
of Iroquois personality should take into account several cases of 
insanity that have developed among younger people, who, having 
found nothing respectable in the old culture, have also been frustrated 
in an attempt to adjust themselves to White culture as the progressive 
Indians see it. They are caught between two spurious cultures. 
However, my studies have been confined to the devout followers of 


40 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


Handsome Lake, who, I believe, in seizing upon the accumulated goods 
and traditions of their own culture, have unfolded their own personal- 
ities within its framework. Despite conflicts with one another, they 
share a common love of the old way. They forget the uncertainties 
of a changing world, and derive real pleasure from being ‘‘Indians,”’ 
at least for the duration of the ceremonies. This statement is offered 
in an attempt to illustrate how individual variations in behavior can 
affect ethnology (cf. Wallace, A. F. C., 1952). 


CASE I. WOOD-EATER, AN ELDERLY MAN OF THE BEAR CLAN 


When I first heard of Wood-eater in June of 1933 it was through 
the recommendation of a white missionary who thought that the old 
man might possibly suit my interests as an anthropologist because he 
listed Wood-eater among those who caused most consternation in the 
work of Christian uplift. ‘The missionary could boast some progress 
with the pagan Indians, as he called them, since they now let him speak 
first at their funerals before Wood-eater rose to deliver his address and 
tell the people not to believe what the white preacher had said. 

During the summer I came to know old dji’wa’, as the Indians 
fondly called him. In August he was making elm-bark bowls to 
exhibit at the New York State Fair. He showed me an elm-bark 
cradle of a type which preceded the wooden cradleboard. From a 
discussion of handicrafts and their uses in the old culture, our conver- 
sations drifted to herbal medicines, the content of the ceremonies, 
and ritualistic forms of address. Unlike others of the Seneca who 
were unsure of themselves in such matters, Wood-eater had full confi- 
dence in his knowledge, and he was always willing to impart accurately 
just what the old people told him. 

He invited me to stay with him during the Midwinter Festival of 
1934, and I returned to live in his household the next summer. With 
the old man as informant, his son clarifying what the old man had said 
while biting his pipestem, and his son’s wife interpreting, we worked 
at ethnology at the dinner table, around the stove while wiping dishes, 
on summer evenings propped up in chairs facing the road. Sometimes 
to my regret but to his own interest, the old man would tire of my 
questions and retire to hoe his garden, or he would vanish into the 
bush to return with some medicinal plant for the herbarium. 

Visitors came to see him frequently, or to see me. Sometimes the 
Coldspring Singers Society came to dance, or just to sing; and when 
these activities flagged we “put up” the False-faces or held a feast for 
some other medicine society. 

I attended the public affairs at the Longhouse with the family. 
There we listened to the old man, there formally designated Twi’yen- 
dagg’, Wood-eater, the principal speaker for the officers. As my abil- 


FEnton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 41 


ity to take Seneca texts phonetically improved, he would dictate ‘‘for 
the book’ what he told the people. Thus he gave me the long address 
which he customarily delivered at funerals, and which he used a few 
days later over Chesley Snow (Fenton, 1946). It was on this occa- 
sion that I heard him contradict the missionary. 

As we walked home from the cemetery, he said: 

Chesley was there among his relatives. He knew what I say this morning. 
I told them it was no good for the missionary to talk because [English] is hard 
language to understand. Some do not know what hesaid. I told them today that 
somebody should chose one preacher. It no use to have two preachers. Poor 
Chesley will not know where to go. He will be all mixed up. There are two 
roads. The missionary directs one, I another. He can’t go on both. Chesley 
stays on the middle and he does not know where he goes . . . I did the best I 
could. 


He went on to tell me how he would like to have his own funeral. 


They used to get a horse to take the body to the Longhouse . . . if a man had 
gone there during his lifetime. I want to be buried in a plain board coffin. Just 
the body uses it. The soul has gone out of it. Hesees the body lay down. He 
don’t know what is the trouble. 

The Indian poormaster, appointed by the people, has no money to pay, but 
men at Coldspring can make a board coffin. 

This is how it should be with us Indians. 


Dji’wa’ got his wish. They did not bury him in a cloth-covered 
coffin such as he abhorred. When his body was brought home from 
the Salamanca City Hospital where he died in 1946, his neighbors 
dressed him in Indian costume and buried him in a pine box which 
they made for him. 

Wood-eater was about 70 years old when I first knew him. His 
mother was an Onondaga of the Heron Clan, one of a little band of 
Onondaga descendants of that lineage who had settled among the 
Allegany Seneca. His mother’s mother had come from Onondaga 
many years ago. Seneca was his native tongue, and he had little 
English. A matron of the Wolf clan remarked: 

His mother was really of the Heron Clan but he was adopted by Nancy Billy, 
mother of Arrow and Ten-mornings, matron of the Seneca Bear Clan. She 
changed his clan and name to the Bear roster. Adoption by a woman of 
another clan changes his clan but not his nation. 

His name, however, belongs to the Bear Clan, in which he func- 
tioned. But his nickname (dji’wa’) is not clan property, and was 
shared by a member of another clan at Tonawanda. 

He remains an Onondaga on the annuity rolls. The councillors have to accept 
him before he can be put on the Seneca annuity roll, thus adopting him into the 
Seneca Nation. 

Formerly they used to adopt aliens of other nations. The councillors have 


put a stop to the practice because abuses arose. Hemlocks-lying-down’s mother 
was caught collecting annuities in both Canada and in New York. 


42 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ Bu. 156 


After his mother got another man, Dji’wa’ grew up at his grand- 
mother’s house where he came under the tutelage of his foster mother’s 
brother, Oscar Crow, from whom he learned the message of the 
Seneca Prophet, Handsome Lake, and how to speak in the Longhouse. 
Much participation as well as hard listening to the older speakers at 
the ceremonies etched in his mind the content of the entire Coldspring 
Seneca ceremonial cycle. He used to practice the learning of the 
Longhouse while walking in the woods and when felling timber. Old 
men must have liked this youth because they told him many things 
to remember, including the tobacco-burning prayers for Eagle Dance. 

At times he had been a seasonal farmhand for my family, a railroad 
worker, a pretty fair carpenter. He had felled timber in the big woods, 
and during the last lumber boom along the Allegheny River he had 
ridden the rafts downriver to Pittsburgh. He had owned teams and 
cattle, and he had built the house where he lived. 

He married twice, had several daughters and sons. Only his young- 
est son and a daughter’s son lived with him. His wife had been a 
Longhouse official of the Snipe Clan. Other daughters by another 
husband lived nearby but were not friendly to the household. He 
feared other neighbors too. 

The man was no physical coward. Broken knuckles in his later 
years attested to many summers of playing baseball without a glove. 
The Coldspring people, like all Seneca, are ardent fans. I have seen the 
old man stop a hard liner with one bare hand. He loved lacrosse and 
he had played it well on a team with Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch and 
others when they were youths. He never mentioned his prowess as a 
runner, but it is said at Quaker Bridge that he and Deerfoot, a noted 
Seneca runner, had gone across the ocean as youths to defeat the best 
runners on the Continent. With failing health, he gave up his games, 
and he sold his carpenter’s tools to buy groceries for his last days. 

As a ritual speaker and preacher of the Handsome Lake Revelation, 
Wood-eater heeded many calls on his services both at home and abroad 
on such occasions as the Green Corn and Midwinter Festivals and at 
the annual revivals of the Longhouse People which they call ‘Six 
Nations Meetings.” At home, Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch and old 
Twenty-canoes accepted his version of the Good Message (Deardorff, 
1951). Draped-over-a-log and Arrow, his adopted half-brother, asked 
him to conduct the stated festivals at the longhouse. It was usually 
he who appeared to “put tobacco in the fire’ at meetings of Eagle 
Dance. Wood-eater was the one, moreover, whom the officials of 
other longhouses—Newtown, Cattaraugus, Tonawanda, Onondaga, 
and the three longhouses at Grand River, Canada—summoned in the 
fall with notched message sticks and a short string of white wampum 
to preach at their meetings. ‘We like to hear that old man from 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 43 


Allegany speak Seneca,’ I was told at Ohsweken in 1945. What he 
said was most like the words spoken at Burnthouse (Cornplanter, 
Pa.), a century and a half ago. 

The old man had his qualms about appearing before a crowd, partic- 
ularly in Coldspring. Actually, members of the other faction—Snorer, 
Earth-hiller, his son’s half-sisters—annoyed him. He feared them. I 
have observed him taking a potion to ward away witchcraft, which he 
thought his rivals were attempting, before going up to the longhouse 
to speak. When he was called to Tonawanda for the Six Nations 
Meeting of 1933, Snorer got his chance to conduct the Green Corn 
Festival. Earth-hiJer and her son Sunshine immediately came into 
prominence; the mother was very active in the longhouse and the son 
outside parking cars. Both knew that Snorer was an outlander, and 
that his version of the ceremonies countered local tradition. To all 
this Wood-eater feigned amusement which was not convincing. 

Wood-eater was a splendid informant. His pride and reserve melted 
before the wishes of a grandson. He told stories on winter nights. He 
had confidence in his knowledge, and his honesty asserted itself when 
in doubt. ‘I only know what the old folks tell me,” he would say, 
and not claim knowledge of what happened long ago. 

It perplexed him that Hemlocks-lying-down should give way to 
tears while singing Handsome Lake’s song to the Wind and Thunder at 
the Midwinter Festival of 1934. He himself seemed emotionally sta- 
ble, unhurried, and confident that he fulfilled the Prophet’s canons of 
good behavior. For this he was respected. 

Because his son’s wife is the daughter of Resting-sky’s wife, It-dips- 
water, his presence at the Eagle Dance for Resting-sky was expected. 


CASE 2. CORN-HUSKER, A MIDDLE-AGED COMMONER OF THE HAWK CLAN 


Corn-husker (newiya’’gq’)—or Parts-the-riffles—is brother of Rest- 
ing-sky’s wife, and they both are of the Hawk Clan like their mother 
who bore him 57 years ago at Coldspring. She was a reputed basket 
maker, and his father was a Faith-keeper in the Wolf Clan. The 
latter, a sharpshooter in Grant’s army during the Civil War, knew 
many White families in the Conewango Valley, between Allegany and 
Cattaraugus Reservations. Amos was jovial and fat, but his son is 
muscular and slight, though good-natured. 

The father’s greatness is much impressed upon the son, who provi- 
sionally carried on his father’s duties at the longhouse for a time in lieu 
of a successor in the Wolf Clan. Finally, constant duty as a section 
hand on the Erie Railroad during 30 years prevented his attending the 
“doings” at the longhouse. So he gave up his office. [literacy and 
drink, the latter perhaps an expression of conflict, prevented his get- 

982306—53——4 


44 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY L BULL. 156 


ting a foremanship on the railroad. He could set a good curve, even 
after being drunk, but he could not write reports. 

He belongs to the Coldspring Singers, an organization for mutual aid 
composed of younger men and certain old women whom they befriend, 
and he regularly attends their meetings and excels in singing the 
Pigeon and Sharpening-a-Stick Dances. He is well liked by his fellows 
who always inquire his whereabouts when he fails to appear of an 
evening. His clownishness insures a laugh from the Feather dancers, 
even during religious festivals. 

If deficient in ritualistic pedantry, Corn-husker compensates by wit 
and a genius for material culture. He is a good gambler and famed 
maker of ‘‘snow-snakes.” He ‘‘fixes’”? water drums for his fellow 
singers by converting discarded paint kegs into resonators over which 
he stretches a soaked hide. He makes turtle rattles and carves false- 
faces (masks), in all of which he has a reputation for brilliant and 
feverish execution, usually induced by procrastination. His wife 
told me that once he took plenty of time and carved a beautiful drum- 
stick adorned with a human head on the handle. He is generous 
and helps her at night in the gardens. 

His wife attended Carlisle, and after they began to live together he 
told his sisters that when she first returned she could not cook. When 
meals are late, he frequently remarks that he has just seen skeletons 
of men starved by their wives passing westward along the road to the 
hereafter. He admits his wife keeps a good garden and that she 
picks berries enough for the winter. They have lived together over 
30 years. Like her, all the children are shy, and his relatives often 
remark about this. One was recently killed accidentally, but Corn- 
husker, wishing to avoid trouble, insisted no foul play was involved. 
He is quite susceptible to public opinion. 

Corn-husker has an inordinate fear of ghosts, according to his rel- 
atives, and a penchant for fabricating and enlarging upon his ad- 
ventures—particularly his relationship with Whites. My long 
residence on his premises was welcome substantiation of a long- 
boasted friendship with my grandfather. I must confess the advan- 
tages of this situation were manifold. His hospitality includes harbor- 
ing a great number of pets: young hawks, skunks, and a crow which 
he claims speaks Seneca. 

When Corn-husker was younger he had aspirations of becoming 
a great athlete; he especially aspired to pugilistic prowess. Wearing 
shorts, he ran about a triangle of roads in Coldspring every evening 
hoping to improve his wind. Some confreres, wishing to scare him, 
wrapped themselves in sheeting and stood on a fallen pine tree near 
the council house as he passed. Seeing them and thinking them 


FEnron] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 45 


ghosts (dji‘sg¢.), he threw stones at them; and one fell and sprained 
a shoulder. 

Corn-husker is usually appointed ‘“‘whooper’’ at medicine society 
meetings. He is normally invited everywhere, but his wife seldom 
accompanies him, being both shy and somewhat incredulous of the 
medicine societies, as well as uninformed. She told me that once her 
children were sent away from a neighbor’s, where they were having a 
False-face anniversary rite, because their mother is not a real pagan. 

Possibly this has something to do with his frequent visits at his 
sisters’ homes. They often hold medicine rites for him. He was 
expected to come to Resting-sky’s meeting. He finds in the Eagle 
Dance a legitimate outlet for his stories and good-natured wit. 


CASE 8. STICK-LODGED-IN-A-CROTCH, GUARDIAN OF THE 
GOOD MESSAGE IN THE DEER CLAN 


Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch (hawi’theg’k) is now an old man, and 
his people before him lived at Coldspring. He is of the Deer Clan 
and custodian of Handsome Lake’s good message, the senior religious 
office for his moiety, which includes the Deer, Snipe, Heron, and Hawk 
Clans. That office necessitates his spending many weeks traveling 
while visiting other longhouses with ‘‘Twenty,” the corresponding 
officer of the Bear Clan in the other moiety, and Wood-eater, the 
preacher. Besides, he is the Big Crow of the “Little Water Company,” 
which holds its periodic meetings at his home. The members leave 
their ritual paraphernalia there and he is custodian of the tribal 
medicine. Corn-husker left his bundle there, and he says that when 
he went after it, it had disappeared because Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch 
sold it at one of the Canadian longhouses. 

Still a hard-working and thrifty farmer, Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch 
has by far the most substantial buildings and means of the people who 
follow the ‘‘old way.” Hestill keeps a horse and afew cows. Besides 
he has raised a large family. His wife is now dead, but some of a 
daughter’s family live at home. 

His proclivity for falling asleep during rituals and longhouse meet- 
ings is noted. He suffers some shyness in talking and is not readily 
understood, partly because he mumbles sleepily and because he has a 
number of nervous habits. He is apt to rub the back of his left hand, 
or his forehead, or scratch his head above his right ear. When he 
rises to talk he characteristically removes his felt hat by grasping it 
from the rear and bringing it forward, instead of doffing it from front 
to back. It is said that once he tore off a collar while talking, and 
another time the rim of his hat; and again while reciting his mission, 
he twisted a button from his overcoat, and the button flew across the 
room. 


46 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


He is reputed never to have learned the origin legends for the rit- 
uals, because he has always gone to sleep while others were talking. As 
I suspected, this is not entirely true. He has been my informant, and 
his long life in ritual has made him conversant with all the forms, but 
I did not find him a ready teacher. No Eagle Dance is quite com- 
plete without him (and a great butt of jokes and conversation was lost 
when he departed). 

At the longhouse social dances, young men who are scheduling the 
events usually hand him a horn rattle to lead the Linking-arms or 
Hand-in-hand Dance, which he is fond of singing. If his partner, 
“Twenty,” the chief of the opposite moiety, is present, floormen organ- 
ize the Trotting Dance and ask them to lead it. They also join as 
partners in the Fish Dance. The partners are famous in other long- 
houses where they visit. At Tonawanda, they call it “Great Quiver 
Dance,” when these two old men lead. In passing, it might be said 
that such friendships frequently emerge from standing in particular 
ceremonial relationships to another person in the other moiety as rit- 
ual singing partners, dance leaders, and chiefs. However, dancing 
partners are usually friends, and may be of the same phratry. Each 
longhouse officer has a correspondent on the other side, and the two 
are supposed to work together. 

Such situations of paired roles may lead to rivalry. For example, 
a funeral requires that the preacher be from the opposite moiety to 
the deceased. In Coldspring, where there are only two speakers who 
now perform this office, the rival factions sometimes have to call upon 
an adversary, and the family which is affiliated with the other faction, 
so as to draw the unwanted one, may be at a loss. The two might be 
cronies, but they are rivals. 

To return, Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch’s role in the culture of the local 
group is rather that of a participant than a shaper. He exerts a nega- 
tive rather than a positive force, which might be characterized as an 
anchor to windward for the “longhousers.”’ 


CASE 4. SNORER, A FAITH-KEEPER OF THE HAWK CLAN, A CONSCI- 
ENTIOUS OBJECTOR 


Snorer (shogé’gwa's), of the Hawk Clan, lives up on “High Bank” 
overlooking Wolf Run and the Allegheny River to the east. His 
youngest son, of the Bear Clan, who lives with him, will inherit part 
of his father’s knowledge, having been home during the years of 
Snorer’s greatest erudition. The mother and many of Snorer’s chil- 
dren preceded him along the westward road to the hereafter, leaving 
him somewhat lonely. A son lives at Coldspring, and still another 
works on the Erie Railroad near Jamestown. 

Born and nurtured at Plank Road, Cattaraugus Reservation, 


TROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 47 


Snorer learned English and Asher Wright’s missionary orthography 
for Seneca. He sold baskets in Buffalo and sought fraternity in water- 
front saloons. He is reputed to have drunk and fought at Newtown 
Longhouse, instead of listening to the older men. Nevertheless, he 
soon distinguished himself as a craftsman and as a ritual singer. He 
still has a stentorian baritone voice and a phenomenally inconsistent 
memory which contradicts versions of songs he has previously taught 
his pupils. 

He-strikes-the-rushes says that his father, a noted ritual custodian, 
went to Snorer once for the medicine songs. He soon gave up trying 
to learn Snorer’s version and went to someone else, because his tutor 
sang them differently at each sitting. 

Snorer moved to Allegany, his wife’s community, and his younger 
children were born there. Although now a long-time resident and 
even a Faith-keeper in the longhouse, he is still regarded as an inter- 
loper. To fortify his position he has established himself as an author- 
ity on ancient lore and learned everything possible. His inordinate 
pride and anxiety lest he be outstripped by Wood-eater has prompted 
him to pretend knowledge of Handsome Lake’s Revelation, saying his 
father before him was a preacher and taught him; but his recitation 
was not approved by the committee appointed to hear him. 

Nevertheless, he is an impressive orator, and commands the respect 
of his listeners which at other times he demands but cannot control. 
He modulates his voice, speaking some parts softly. He says, ‘‘You 
notice how they are all quiet when I talk in the longhouse. There is 
no whispering as there is when Wood-eater speaks.” 

In 1933 when Wood-eater was called to the Six Nations Meeting at 
Tonawanda, the two male longhouse officers asked Snorer to conduct 
the Green Corn Festival. On the third day, before addressing the 
Creator between songs of the Thanksgiving Dance, a role usually per- 
formed by Wood-eater, Snorer explained it as his first attempt, con- 
fessing a sketchy knowledge of the forms; but he did not call on another 
Faith-keeper who was present and knew the invocatory chants. 

Snorer is an excellent informant. Having been derided, he has 
pumped his rivals, endeavoring to learn all they know and at the same 
time render himself indispensable. His thirst for knowledge in part 
accounts for his inconsistencies. His store is vast and necessarily his 
selections differ periodically. He has acquired a world of informa- 
tion, which, of necessity he has thought through. He becomes the 
preacher when Wood-eater is ill or unable to preach. This happened 
when Wood-eater’s wife died a year ago. 

Snorer hoped that he and his young son might attend the Six Nations 
Meetings, that they might learn of extra local affairs. He would like 
to be recognized among all the Iroquois peoples. ‘Once he went to 


48 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


Canada, saying he had been called, but no one had heard of him there.” 

When delegates are summoned to Six Nations Religious Councils, 
the messenger summons only the chiefs by name. Then all the Faith- 
keepers are summoned in a body, before the common people. It irks 
both Snorer and Hemlocks-lying-down considerably to be bracketed, 
for they feel their names should be mentioned individually.” It is 
only unfortunate that they have no living mothers or sisters of naming 
rank who could nominate them for high office. Further, Hemlocks- 
lying-down is only Seneca by sufferance, being an outlander by birth. 

It must not be construed that Snorer is without power or friends. 
His singing ability promoted him to head singer for the “Little Water 
Company,” although he no longer holds the medicine. Chauncey 
Warrior of the Turtle Clan, a Cattaraugus Cayuga in the other moiety, 
is his ‘‘partner.”’ Earth-hiller, the old woman of the Wolf Clan, leads 
the faction which opposes Wood-eater, and she employs Snorer as her 
spokesman. 

Snorer exhibits a blunt exterior and is easily offended; and he is 
given to sudden and sustained anger when crossed, but to ‘‘Rabe- 
lasian” humor if encouraged. Recently, Snorer’s son brought home a 
Canadian Iroquois mistress, but another Coldspring youth enticed her 
away. Snorer remarked, “I guess my son just rented it. He and 
his friend are too weak to dance Eagle Dance any more.” 

Like many of his tribesmen, Snorer has been a ‘‘show’’ Indian, and 
once visited Glen Island beyond New York City. He is proud of his 
knowledge of White culture. When away from home, he becomes 
Chief ‘White Eagle,” a fictitious person, and a vendor of fabricated 
ethnography. Loyalty to his own culture does not permit his singing 
anything but ‘‘show songs” away from home. 

Even as an old man, he bragged that White women wished to marry 
him, but old Seneca women remark that he is even too lame to get 
firewood. They call him “curly-headed-John,’”’ a somewhat sinistral 
compliment, since Indian hair is traditionally straight. However, he 
claims descent from Mary Jemison, the ‘‘White woman of the 
Genesee,” who is a coveted ancestor of many mixed-bloods. 

One may readily understand that bitterness as well as increasing 
lameness kept him from the longhouse in 1934 while Wood-eater con- 
ducted the New Year’s Dance. Referring to his excessive lameness 
and attributing it to the sorcery of his rival, he said: 

“T am tired of the trouble I am having. I am going to turn it 
around. Clairvoyants say that they are jealous because I was a great 
dancer of social dances. I mean the ones that are on this earth for 
our enjoyment, not the four sacred rituals, which alone are in heaven.” 


12 Since this was written he was called to preach in Canada and at Cattaraugus, his old home. His 
ambitions were not unavailing. 


Fanton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 49 


Nevertheless, the proximity of Resting-sky’s home to “High Bank’? 
and the lure of hog’s head and a pail of corn soup, permitted his hob- 
bling down to the Eagle Society meeting and participating. Life at 
Coldspring is different without him. 


CASE 5. HEMLOCKS-LYING-DOWN, A SO-CALLED “CAYUGA” 
OF THE TURTLE CLAN 


Hemlocks-lying-down was a grown man when he came to Coldspring 
about 1889 from Cattaraugus Reservation. Thougha functioning mem- 
ber of the Turtle Clan at Coldspring, local Seneca call him a 
“Cayuga,” which, like ‘‘Delaware,”’ is a smear word for one of un- 
certain social position, to underscore the fact that he is an outlander. 
The man who marries into the Seneca Nation, or who removes from 
Cattaraugus to Allegany or to Tonawanda, is never allowed to forget 
that he does not really belong to the community where he may spend 
his adult life. 

Born at Cattaraugus at a place called Plank Road before 1870, his 
father was a recognized Seneca of the Beaver Clan from Buffalo Creek, 
named Split-house. His mother was really a Seneca of the Turtle Clan 
with the name of ‘‘Big leaf,” but she went off to Grand River, Canada, 
to make a second marriage with a Cayuga with whom she resided so 
long that they added her name to the Cayuga tribal roll. Therefore, 
old Seneca women around Coldspring came to wonder whether his 
mother was not really a Cayuga, or of some other, perhaps Algonquian, 
tribe, saying, ‘“They came from way beyond Canada,” meaning the 
Grand River Reserve. 

His first recollections are of life along Clear Creek in a predomi- 
nantly Turtle Clan house. Later he lived on the ball ground or com- 
mon at Newtown Longhouse where the life of a growing boy is full 
of sport and where the ceremonies take place. The boys of Newtown 
gave up their ball game only when an official called from the door for 
them to come inside as the ceremonies were to start. They listened, 
and danced at the end of the line. Unlike his grandsons, who are 
famed dancers, he learned late, at 18, under tutelage of his father. 
Boys were helped at home before joining public ceremonies. 

Likewise he was 21 before he sang Great Feather Dance in public. 
He and a singing partner listened to his father and practiced, and 
their great day came when the regular singer got drunk on hard cider 
en route to the Green Corn Dance. ‘‘Word came that the regular 
singer was lying under a tree. The officials put us in. I was nerv- 
ous the first time we sat down on the bench in the longhouse. After 
that we used to sing at every ceremony.” 

Hemlocks-lying-down was thus an accomplished singer at the long- 
house before he ever came to Allegany. As he learned, the old men 


50 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


coached him. But he did not sing for the Medicine Society until 
after he came to Coldspring. An old lady, mother of Earth-hiller, 
taught him the legend and songs. 

He settled first at Wolf Run close to his work, which was first in a 
lumber mill, then on the section gang of the Pennsylvania Railroad, a 
job he was to hold 35 years. He worked 9 years for the Erie. From 
the time he first went out to work in the basket factory and the cannery 
near Cattaraugus until his retirement from work on the section, he has 
been a steady worker. He was still a man of tremendous physical 
strength in his sixties when I first knew him. He was then living at 
Coldspring, just south of where the creek enters Allegheny River, 
in a cluster of three houses occupied by his offspring. His wife, 
with whom he stayed for 40 years, had died but a few years pre- 
viously. 

Actually, the latter was his third marriage, not counting an affair 
when he first came to Allegany with a young girl, the sister of Corn- 
husker and later wife of Resting-sky. At 16 he had married a Ca- 
nadian Iroquois girl, whose picture he still carried in 1948. They had 
met at a dance at Sour Springs; he brought her home, but she was 
taken sick and died within 18 months of a rheumatic heart. A son 
died in the Canadian army in 1919. A second marriage was with a 
Newtown girl, but some trouble developed, and he came to Allegany. 

Here developed the trysts at the river crossing with It-dips-water, 
whom he never considered a wife, but this attitude in itself reflects 
distance between him and her kindred, which is of significance for 
this study. He does not go to Resting-sky’s, so his not appearing at 
that Eagle Dance is not perplexing. 

When I first knew him he claimed not to know many people because 
he always remained at home making baskets. 

“‘T make the best baskets in Coldspring and White people come from 
all over to get them. No one around here knows as much about the 
medicines. Life at Cattaraugus is nearer the old way.”’ 

His household in Coldspring includes his son’s son, a Beaver, and the 
latter’s current wife. His only son, a Wolf, lives across the road with 
a second grandson. When questioned about this offspring, he said, 

“T had only Great-night; I guess I was no good for that sort of bus- 
iness.”” Actually he and his son are not close; his two grandsons, 
whom he raised, are his closest kin. 

His deceased wife’s brother, djidégwas, also lived across the road 
in the only log house extant in Coldspring. This little cluster of 
households forms the basis of a family clique in Coldspring society. 

Corn-husker’s remarks reflect the opinion of a faction toward a 
smaller feud group encysted in the community: “I told my wife that 
if you go down to his place all the time, you get all twisted up. I am 


Funton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 51 


not going to tell you anything more. I always tell the truth when you 
write it down.” 

I had noticed that Corn-husker was a bit offish at Great-night’s 
house one evening, when the Coldspring Singers Society met there. 
He remained outside and went home early. Later he mentioned that 
there had been trouble between the families. Corn-husker does not 
like to believe that Great-night’s group know anything about his son’s 
death, although others have told him. 

That man is a trouble-maker. He is mad at the longhouse people because he 
insists ritual songs and the Handsome Lake religion should be different from the 
way they are conducted here. They [the longhouse officers] do not have him sing 
Feather Dance any longer. 

Those two families down there are by themselves. There will be trouble if you 
go there. Draped-over-log and Arrow, the two longhouse headmen, and Stick- 
lodged-in-a-crotch and the Snows will not like it. They are like children; they 
run about [as if] they did not know where they were at. 


The men of Cattaraugus, like Hemlocks-lying-down and Chauncey 
Warrior, his clansman, are truly foreigners within the community. 
One is a fine singer and a capable orator, but he holds no office; a 
feigned lack of interest in not being a Faith-keeper is but a mask for a 
sense of social inferiority. Undoubtedly Hemlocks-lying-down excels 
many of those in office. His singing ability is a hold on fame. He 
renders the sacred songs particularly well and when not ‘‘mad”’ at the 
longhouse officers, they usually request him to sing. The officials 
were in his good graces at the 1934 ‘‘New Year’s,” but on two impor- 
tant occasions he failed to appear. Someone said he liked to be coaxed. 
He told me, ‘“‘I am the only singer who knows all of the Big-Women’s 
Dance. Once Fannie Stevens [an Onondaga of the Heron Clan] had 
to come after me so they could have it.”” Then he chuckled. 

He-strikes-the-rushes relates how he and Hemlocks-lying-down were 
invited to sing Feather Dance together at a Six Nations meeting at 
Coldspring. The former had a new turtle rattle which the latter 
borrowed and in singing beat it so hard on the bench to keep time that 
the handle broke. ‘Afterward, Old Yéndi told me that he was jealous 
of my singing ability, and he beat that rattle hard enough to break it.” 

Although Snorer and Chauncey Warrior find solace in each other’s 
company, Hemlocks-lying-down maintains only a ‘“‘kidding’’ relation- 
ship with the former. He had a serious falling out with Snorer one 
winter, because the latter borrowed six strings of corn and two bushels 
of potatoes, when facing starvation, and did not later repay them. 
Later, when Snorer had a horse and buggy, he took Hemlocks-lying- 
down to Randolph and wanted money and more corn to boot for his 
services. Hemlocks-lying-down alleges he has to feed half the neigh- 
borhood every winter. 


52 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bun. 156 


Pride in the productivity of his garden is warranted. He regretted 
that his deceased wife’s brother, djiddgwas, should raise better corn 
in 1933, and that Draped-over-log should raise the best cabbages, but 
he contends that his seed is ancient and usually grows. His gardening 
ability is only surpassed by his craftsmanship. 

His and Snorer’s relative merits as woodworkers approximate their 
rivalry as singers and folklorists. He claims that whenever he has 
developed a new lacrosse stick or baseball bat, Snorer has endeavored 
to copy it. But every time Hemlocks-lying-down has scooped the 
market and left his rival with a frozen stock. In the meanwhile he 
develops a new idea. 

Of the two, one is impressed that Hemlocks-lying-down fashions for 
the love of it. His baskets and musical instruments have a dignity 
which results from a mastery of technique and patient leisurely han- 
dling. In contradistinction, one notes the bold regular facets of a 
ponderously intuitive style of carving which is his rival’s, and which 
one feels may be susceptible to greater refinement. Hemlocks-lying- 
down reluctantly admits that the Snorer is the only man at Coldspring 
who knows how to make a flageolet. 

Hemlocks-lying-down frequently goes into the woods to gather 
medicines. His knowledge of ethnobotany, though characteristic of 
elderly Seneca, is considered extraordinary even among his own people. 
I have rarely suggested a plant for which he did not know many uses. 
His preoccupation with botany and carving has influenced many to 
suspect him of sorcery. 

Hemlocks-lying-down kept an angora cat named “Mickey” and a 
mangy nondescript pup called ‘‘ Zero,” because, as he said, he “amounts 
to nothing.”” He was nearly as sentimental about a small pig. 

He is inclined to whimsey. During the New Year Dance of 1934 
he was appointed conductor by several medicine society ritual sponsors. 
While requesting a man who was seated on the second row of longhouse 
benches to sing, he would lean over and pinch a youth’s leg—the 
while he was whispering earnestly to the singer—and then stand back, 
look surprised at the boy and laugh. This behavior, coupled with 
amused chuckling, especially at his own bon mots, which usually have 
humorous sexual reference, is perhaps an expression of his own sexual 
preoccupation, a business at which he admits he was unproductive. 
Further, it expresses a peculiarly Seneca love for the ‘‘little ones,” 
which emerges in one form or another among all the older people. 

All of our friends, cited in these case studies, are among the truly 
devout followers of the “‘old way,” but each of them manifests his 
culture differently. As a savant, Snorer would have the community 
support him. Hemlocks-lying-down, essentially anarchical, is more 
interested in himself and his art than in what others think of him, 


FEnron] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 53 


except that his singing remains indispensable to the longhouse people. 
Rather than thrust himself forward he patiently waits to be coaxed, 
and sometimes goes home in a peeve when slighted. But when active 
he is sincerely emotional and deeply moved by his own singing and its 
symbolism within the ritual. More than once I have seen the tears 
course down his cheeks as he sang Feather Dance or the Dawn Song 
which his father sang before him. More than any other person I know, 
he has identified himself completely with his cultural environment. 

He conducted the first meeting of the Eagle Society but was absent 
at Resting-sky’s anniversary, both for reasons explained above and 
because he was singing at Earth-hiller’s “doings” in Coldspring. He 
happened to be in her good favor that winter. 


CASE 6. EARTH-HILLER, MATRON OF THE WOLF CLAN 


A woman named Earth-hiller (gain’dahgwa’) (pl. 14) is the old 
woman Faith-keeper of the Wolf Clan. She lives at Coldspring near 
the longhouse with Sunshine, her son, and a granddaughter, now grown 
up. She harbored (djido't) the reservation vagrant, whom everyone 
else feared. Although now lean and dependent on a crutch, she was 
once a fine-looking woman and still presents an imposing figure in the 
councils of the longhouse officers. . 

Like her son, who habitually affects a cane and doesn’t need it,she too 
is able to dispense with her crutch, and not to be outdone by other spry 
old women, cavorts with great birdlike jumps in the women’s dances, 
her crutch tucked beneath her left arm pit and the free end waving 
dangerously aft. She seems to enjoy the amusement she elicits and 
frequently whoops shrilly to incite it. 

Sometimes her enthusiasm has led to subsequent ridicule. During 
the seventh day of the Midwinter Festival she was moved to express 
her thanks to the Great Spirit en marche between songs of the Tra- 
ditional-woman’s Dance. Suddenly she piped in all sincerity, ‘I am 
thankful I am living at this season.” Everyone laughed, although 
her behavior was well within the proprieties of the occasion. 

She, as well as any woman, illustrates the classic power of Iroquois 
woman. She objects to Wood-eater, not liking him, and employs 
Snorer as her spokesman. She would exalt her son to a status office, 
insisting his name is of chiefly rank. At times impatient, she shrieks 
her objections from her station near the women’s door. She loaned 
her land to the baseball team for a diamond, but offered it to a second 
club a succeeding year, because the first was presumptive enough to 
assume a second season’s use without asking for it. She entertains 
whom she wishes. 


54 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY | BuLL. 156 


COMMENT 


Usually anyone is welcome at Medicine Society meetings, espe- 
cially if he pays the price of admittance, a pinch of Indian tobacco for 
the offering and for the members to smoke. It rests with the con- 
ductor whom the host has appointed to invite the members. Never- 
theless, Earth-hiller makes out a list, hands it to the conductor, and 
designates who shall not be invited. 

Hence, it is interesting that since she held an anniversary of the 
Eagle Dance on the same night as Resting-sky, which was legitimate, 
since midwinter is the appropriate season for feasts, her choice of 
guests included Hemlocks-lying-down as conductor, and limited 
Resting-sky’s conductor’s selection of dancers to two boys from the 
Bear Clan, for she had previously secured the two other boys who 
represented both moieties and knew how to dance. I suppose that 
no such conflict would arise in an aboriginal community in which 
normally most of the youths would know the Eagle Dance. The con- 
flict naturally meant that certain people were invited to both meetings 
and had to exercise a preference which, in itself, is significant. The 
fact that some people came greater distances to Resting-sky’s party 
indicates that proximity did not entirely rule their choice. It was, 
however, expected that Snorer and his son would go to Earth-hiller’s 
party, but Resting-sky’s was nearer and, moreover, Hemlocks-lying- 
down had already been chosen to conduct Earth-hiller’s party. 


THE SENECA EAGLE DANCE AT TONAWANDA 
THE CEREMONY 


The Tonawanda Eagle Dance exhibits minor local differences in the 
ritual which, however, Tonawanda residents feel set them apart from 
the other Seneca at Coldspring and Newtown. My observations and 
inquiries are centered about one meeting, an anniversary of the cure 
of Helper, an old Sachem of the Bear Clan (pl. 15), and the renewal 
of his ceremonial friendship with his young friend, He-is-coming, of the 
Snipe clan in the other moiety (p.126). This meeting called forth the 
best wits in the community, and they were afterward my informants. 
Therefore, rather than set forth a detailed description of my own 
observations, I shall note obvious ritual differences and then relate 
two detailed accounts of the ritual by two exceptional informants, 
both sachem chiefs of the Snipe clan—Falling-day, a famed singer, and 
Hair-burned-off, a ritual speaker. Space does not permit a description 
of all the personalities involved in this situation. Nevertheless, cer- 
tain personality references are made by my informants. 

The Tonawanda version of the Eagle Dance is unique in the follow- 
ing respects: There seems to be an emphasis on ceremonial friendship. 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 55 


The meeting requires the usual functionaries: messenger, conductors, 
first singer, and assistants; but the man who asks the blessing and 
returns thanks for all the stations of the pantheon is distinct from 
the tobacco-burning priest. Hair-burned-off performed the former 
office and Twenty-kettles (Hawk Clan) the latter. There is frequent 
mention of “your medicine society (swatcing’g¢’shg’),” and the 
prayers are more elaborate. Before the ceremony, the conductor 
passes tiny pieces of raw meat among the members. 

In the ritual, there were no songs sung by the priest when he burned 
the tobacco, but there was a presentation of rattles and drums to the 
singers. Twenty-kettles said that he was renting the rattles for the 
occasion. One speaker, Awl-breaker (Wolf Clan), in the other moiety, 
presented all the horn rattles instead of gourd rattles to the dancers. 
The dancers were three in number, and they did not employ fans; 
Edward Black (Hawk Clan) admits that fans should be used but were 
forgotten. There was no whooper; one of the dancers performed this 
duty. The striking stick and striking pole were not employed, 
but aninformant says they should be employed and were used anciently ; 
instead, the speaker stamps to interrupt the singers. 

The speeches illustrated for the first time in my experience the ridi- 
cule of someone in the other clan. He-strikes-the-rushes of the Snipe 
Clan (pl. 16, 1) made fun of Awl-breaker in the other moiety, his 
father’s clansman, saying the Wolves are awful liars, and the latter 
replied in kind. Great-root (Turtle Clan) says that Hair-burned-off 
(Speaker) said that the Creator had left everything to be used for 
medicine, that even the paper which wrapped the crackers might be 
used to allay blisters on the feet. This amused people. 

Peculiar to Tonawanda is the donation of packages of chewing 
tobacco to the dancers. Crackers are also used as elsewhere. How- 
ever, speakers do not make gifts to the singers and the persons ridi- 
culed. Nevertheless, at the end of the ritual, when all of the store of 
gifts had been allotted to the dancers and the conductor had taken 
them outside, He-strikes-the-rushes and one other chap made speeches 
of praise and good wishes to the ritual celebrant, Helper, presenting 
him with a few pennies to buy medicine. 

The feast consists of a boiled chicken, instead of pig’s head, which is 
passed counterclockwise. Hominy soup was ladled out by the head- 
man first to the two ritual celebrants, Helper and He-is-coming; then 
the sponsor, Helper’s wife, filled the conductor’s pail, after which he 
called for the members and guests to shove their pails toward the wash 
boiler of soup from which he filled them equally in a counterclockwise 
direction. Then he told them to retrieve them. 

Great-root says that one does not necessarily have to belong to the 


56 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156 


society to speak. He is sure that he is not a member, although he 
acted as first singer. 


One time they had it in the longhouse during the Midwinter Festival and they 
came to me and asked me to sing. I told them I did not know the songs. Well, 
then the conductor said, ‘‘You help.” So I took a rattle and helped the head 
singer and although I did not know the rhythm at first, I soon learned it and got 
used to the songs. Later, they asked me to be head singer. I don’t know whose 
songs I sing, because I learned them of several people whom I assisted at different 
times. Thesongs have no words. The number seems indefinite. 


Following this meeting, He-strikes-the-rushes explained why he took 
the liberty to ridicule Awl-breaker; it was because Awl-breaker is his 
father’s clansman. However, this joking relationship is unknown at 
Tonawanda, and two other informants misunderstood him. 


The Turtle Clan are fibbers. 

The Wolf Clan, they say, are know-it-alls. They used to say that at Newtown 
in the Eagle Dance. The Wolf Clan would brag. Then someone would reply, 
“T am not of the Wolf Clan. Therefore, I cannot boast. My clan has never been 
noted for anything.” 

One jokes with one’s father’s clansman.—Awl-breaker is of my father’s clan, the 
Wolf. We always pick on each other. But we do not take it seriously. He 
talked first at Helper’s. When he gave out the rattles to the dancers, he said that 
they were his. So I replied that he would soon own them, that he boasted. I 
started it after he presented the rattles. I said he was full of lies. You can’t tell 
a Wolf anything. 

The opening speaker should tell what there is to distribute. He also said that 
jokes are permitted. Some are supposed to speak in praise of the ritual sponsor. 
However, I think that my words are superfluous, inasmuch as this was an anni- 
versary; it is different when someone is sick, so it is better to joke and have a good 
time. They talk [encouragement] when it is really a serious case of illness. Other- 
wise, the sponsor’s health is taken care of in the tobacco invocation. Hair-burned- 
off, the orator, said that there would be no limit to the joking. The jokes were to 
be only lasting for the duration of the ritual. The jokes are permitted so long as 
the sponsor is not too sick. Noone must take offense. Awl-breaker got mad and 
went home. 


The origin and early history of the Eagle Dance Medicine Society are 
unfamiliar to Falling-day, although he is 67, a sachem chief, singer for 
the ritual, and generally considered well posted on other matters. 
The idea that the ritual may have been formerly associated with peace 
or war is also unfamiliar to him; the ritual and its significance as a 
medicinal curing society have remained constant within his memory. 


MEMBERSHIP 


In answer to the query as to how memberships were created, 
Falling-day answered: 


You get sick and your folks might think it might help you, and they put youin 
that society. They dance gané’ gwi’e’’. 


FEnron] TROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 57 


Of course, a fortuneteller, one who tells what you don’t know, might tell your 
people that you should join. 

They do different ways but they have the same name. Some use tea, some 
cards, some employ medicinal herbs. They gather certain herbs and put them 
under their pillows when they sleep. 

Dreams are a third mode of entrance. ‘‘They sometimes dream to 
help such, but I have never seen one.’”’ He refers to the practice of a 
person’s dreaming of a sick person in association with the ritual of 
some medicine society. Then the society holds the ritual and cures 
the sick person. 

The frequency with which Falling-day answered my queries (and I 
believe honestly), “I don’t know; I never heard; they never told me 
about that,’’ is in itself indicative of the importance of recognizing indi- 
vidual differences and their bearing on the problem of culture for under- 
standing Seneca ceremonies. Unlike so many lesser members of his 
group, he was well on in years before he joined the Eagle Society. 
Nevertheless, he was a singer for many years. 

I was lame and some people thought that it would help me, so I tried it. This 
was not many, perhaps 15, years ago. 

If I want to get up such a dance, I go to any member and ask him to give the 
invitations. The messenger (hadjdswas) is supposed to be a member, but some- 
times when a member is away, a nonmember acts as messenger. Anyone can 
do it. 

Quite a number of years that I was singer, I was not a member of the society. 
They give you the invitation to go sing, if you know how. If you have a drum, the 
messenger tells you to bring it along; if you lack a drum they will get that of some- 
one else and the rattle boxes. I never had a drum; always someone else furnished 
the drum. 

If I were going to have a meeting I would get anyone to do the cooking. Hominy 
is required for soup; and once in a while they hulled white corn soup but the soup 
must have meat in it because Shada’gé-a’’ eats meat. One whole chicken is 
required. It must be white, but that is hard to get, so we use any kind of 
chicken. 

Falling-day says he thinks pig’s head was formerly used for the feast, 
as now at Allegany, but not often; “it has got to be chicken.” 

The cooking proceeds any time during the day or afternoon—‘‘any- 
time before the dance goes on.” 

Several things are required for the meeting [yene’gw4’’istha’]: crackers and chew- 
ing tobacco to give to the dancers; Indian tobacco for the prayer; yene’gwaistha’ 
ga’nya’—a stick to strike the floor before speaking; and my uncle and predecessor 
Chief Chauncey Abrams [Snipe], and Old Jim Scrogg, who lived across the road, 
told me that at Tonawanda they used to have a post that was striped red like a 
barber pole where they hit the stick when they started dancing. It was used in the 
house where they were dancing. 


SETTING THE BUNDLE UP BEFORE A MEETING PLACE 


Falling-day volunteered that, ‘“Years ago, but I have not seen that, 
when they were going to have such a dance, they would give the invita- 


58 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


tions just the same, but they set up a pole nearby the house and hung 
up one rattle box, the drum, and one fan.” Falling-day thinks that 
they did not hang up the tobacco, nor has he heard that they crossed 
the two fans as at Newtown, but he has never seen the ritual parapher- 
nalia displayed on the forked striped pole. ‘‘Now this is an invitation 
2 days before they are going to have the ritual.’”’ They do not burn 
tobacco when they erect the pole, ‘not until they are ready to dance.” 

The messenger goes from house to house inviting the members to the 
meeting. 


He selects, that’s his duty to select, singers and dancers. He gets two dancers, 
three if he can get three, twoanyway. Sometimesfour. Nodifference. Dancers 
do not have to be of opposite moieties. Not here at Tonawanda. The four- 
dancer pattern of Coldspring is absent at Tonawanda. [See below.] Notched 
invitation sticks are not used, and corn is not distributed to the members to present 
at the meeting as a sign of membership and receipt of invitation. The same 
invitations are given for a celebrant as for a sick person. 

The messenger sets the time. He tells them that such and such a time they are 
to come tothe house. He might say early, just beforedark. Orniyéntcis-do-tha’— 
such a time when you light the lamp. 


THANKSGIVING 


Before they are seated at the meeting, then the announcer (hatha’ha’) begins 
the thanksgiving (gano’-nygk). When he starts speaking [it is not necessary for 
him to run the whole fixed gamut of the pantheon], he must think of (1) the people, 
(2) the four persons [who are] the messenger[s] of the Creator, and (8) the Creator. 
This is the beginning. 

ANNOUNCEMENT 


Then the speaker tells who got up such a dance; he tells what ails the person— 
that he is not feeling well and that he thought that the ceremony might help him. 
Another way, people tended the sick man. They try all the herbal medicines, 
but they don’t do any good, so they thought it might help this kind [that type of 
ceremony might help him]. If you have been attending the sick man and you 
think it may help such [that gane’gwia’e-’ may help him] and you expressed the 
thought that it might help him, then the speaker tells what you thought. 

The speaker tells who is going to sing and who will help. [At Tonawanda, 
singers do not have to be of opposite moieties.] He mentions the names of the 
dancers and how many will dance and that he himself was invited to speak. 

A speaker may have many ways to speak; then he may elaborate and talk for a 
long time, otherwise ‘“‘a man who can’t says but afew words.” Hair-burned-off is 
among the best. When he finishes, then they are seated. 

The messenger becomes the ritual manager or the conductor at the meeting. 
When they all get there, the conductor tells the dancers to put on their costumes. 
He seats the singers and functionaries, leaving an adequate space for the dancers. 

[At this point Falling-day forgot the outline, omitting to mention the general 
thanksgiving speech, announcements, and the invocation.] 


FanTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 59 


TOBACCO INVOCATION 


Twenty-kettles usually does this, but anyone who knows how may 
make the tobacco-burning invocation. Nowadays few know how. 
Falling-day never burned tobacco at this ceremony. 

Falling-day heard that when the priest starts to burn the tobacco 
he makes a war whoop and sings part of the first song, but he never 
saw thisdone. The fan, rattle, drum, and the gifts to distribute after 
the speeches lie on the floor near the stove (fire). The priest does not 
hold them in his hand. 

The tobacco-burning invocation to the Dew Eagle by Twenty-kettles.— 
Twenty-kettles, an old man of the Hawk Clan, senior officer of Tona- 
wanda Longhouse, invariably makes the tobacco-burning invocation 
at meetings of the Eagle Society. 


Someone told the conductor [hadja’swas] to gather the medicine society 
[hong’tcino’’ge¢’], and somebody speaks giving thanks when they come in to the 
meeting. He tells them who will sing when they dance. When they are ready 
the singers sit on the benches. There must be two singers and they must be of 
different moieties. Someone puts tobacco and then the song commences. This 
is gane’’gwi’e’. 

Now you will partake of tobacco, you who are wheeling in flight at the elevation 
the clouds are scudding, you who are of the mists—the Dew Eagles. 

Now the smoke is rising from the real tobacco and through it you cloud dwellers 
shall hear. 

Rightly our ruler ordained as he intended [or said], ‘‘I will create mankind on 
the earth, that there shall travel to and fro human beings to whom, no matter 
where they are, aid shall come from time to time.” 

And they tobacco shall partake, they whom he created, the wild animals; and 
they [humans] shall continue to derive benefit from a bond of friendship between 
themselves and the game animals. 

So now it is fulfilled you [all] shall partake of the tobacco. 

So now then, as it should be, her illness will cease. 

Now then it is well that it has happened so, that she shall continue to travel 
about here on the earth. 

Now then you, our ruler, you reside in the sky place; you should grant strength 
or power when it is fulfilled; the Dew Eagles have partaken of tobacco." 

Now then the fan has partaken of the tobacco, that which is derived from your 
being of which it is symbolic [represents]. 

Now the ceremony is about to commence. 

Now then your drum receives tobacco.!5 

Now the very songs partake of the tobacco. 


13 The invoker addresses the Great Spirit because he originally endowed the Dew Eagles with healing 
power. He has supreme power and should give strength to everything when it is fulfilled. The people 
have already done their duty to the Dew Eagles by giving them tobacco. One always returns thanks to 
the Great Spirit. 

14 The feathers of the fan are plucked from the Eagle. The fan represents the eagle’s wing and is symbolic 
of his body [heya’da’de’—his being]. 

18 Now they are mentioning the items in the ritual and the feast, which is a chicken at Tonawanda, having 
dispensed with the principal functionary, the Dew Eagle; so they may now touch on the minor elements of 
the ritual such as the equipment and the feast. 


982306—53——5 


60 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Bun. 156 


Now this very feast has received tobacco which they are going to pick at when 
they complete the ceremony—they of the medicine society. 

So now also this very striking pole has received tobacco, which they will strike 
and make speeches. 


It is finished (da’‘ne’ho). 
DISTRIBUTION OF TINY PIECES OF MEAT 


‘“‘ After the announcements and the invocation, when everything is 
ready, the conductor comes around counterclockwise with little pieces 
of cut-up pork meat. He distributes this to all the members. This 
meat must be raw. Shada’ge’-a’ don’t eat cooked meat.” 

All ceremonial circuits and distributions which I have observed 
during years of witnessing Seneca ceremonies have been counterclock- 
wise. Falling-days says, “‘The conductor goes ‘to the left’ in a circle 
[shatgwadi-gwa ’e’ ot‘ wada'se’]”; clockwise is called a circle to the right- 
hand side (heyegsto:‘gwa ’e’ ot‘ wada'se’). 


ASSIGNMENT OF ROLES AND PRESENTATION OF PARAPHERNALIA 


Frequently now, the conductor has handed the drum to someone, 
other than the singers, and the rattles and fans to a different man. 
He does not appoint a special whooper; he merely asks someone to 
make the whoop. 

Whoop.—No song is sung at Tonawanda until the drum has been 
presented to the head singer. 

Striking for silence—Somebody has to hit his foot on the floor or 
strike the stick; they are supposed to have a stick. Then the man 
who has the drum says, “I was supposed to sing. The messenger 
invited me to sing, that’s why I have the drum. But now I see there 
is somebody else who is going to sing, so I will let him use the drum. 
You see that that fellow who thinks he is going to sing has no drum and 
his assistants have no rattle boxes so I will let them use or borrow these 
tonight.’”’ Sometimes he says, “I will give it to them.” Speaker 
gives drum and rattles to the first and second singers. Infrequently 
a second speaker presents the horn rattles to the second singer. 


THE RITUAL 


(1) Whoop and Song IJ.—Another man, to whom the conductor has 
entrusted the rattles (for fans have gone out of use recently at Tona- 
wanda), hits the stick and presents the rattle boxes to the dancers. 
“In the invitation I received, I understood that I was to dance, but 
now that I have arrived I see that someone else has been selected to 
dance, and I will let them use what I ordinarily employ when I dance.” 
This one speaker presents the rattles to all the dancers, who do not 
seem to be alined according to phratries. Speeches by members of 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 61 


alternate moieties seemed foreign to Falling-day. Moiety ridicule of 
the other dancer or encouragement to surpass the dancer of the other 
moiety seemed equally strange. ‘‘Not here. Dancers do not have to 
be of opposite sides.”’ 

The four-dancer pattern, with dancers of opposite moieties as at 
Coldspring, is unfamiliar to Falling-day; it is absent at Tonawanda. 

(2) Whoop and Song II.—The Speaker or announcer gives the crack- 
ers and tobacco to the crowd. He sets it conveniently on the floor at 
one side of the open space among the speakers for the convenience of 
anyone who wants to make presents to the dancers. He delivers the 
stuff that the host has made ready for the speakers. 

Hair-burned-off, speaker at Helper’s, said that even the wax paper 
is medicine. 


(3) Whoop and Song III.— 


They sing and here the dancers commence to dance. 

Somebody strikes the floor and speaks. Anyone now—you can say what you 
want tosay. Most of them urge the dancers to keep up their willingness to dance. 
It is well to begin this way; you can urge the dancers, but if you have anything 
special in your mind to say, you may go ahead as you did that time last year. You 
had a joke between yourself and another fellow present. It is alright to tell that. 

After the third song anyone is priviledged to talk. Women may speak. Wil- 
liam Gordon’s wife [skadi] used to speak. Anybody: women, children, may 
speak. 

In joking, they don’t mean what they say. It is a joke to make the sick one 
feel good and forget his ailments. It encourages him to think that he amounts to 
something when all these people have gathered to wish him good luck, health, and 
friendship, and deride each other. 


Moiety separation does not occur at Tonawanda. ‘‘We do not 
separate according to sides here at Tonawanda.” 

Any joking relationship is unfamiliar to Falling-day. “If you find 
a chance to joke with anyone, do it—we do that here.” I asked about 
He-strikes-the-rushes’ alleged joking relationship with Awl-breaker, 
his father’s clansman, because they stood in that relationship, and 
Falling-day replied, “Jesse makes fun of da’hg because they are well 
acquainted, not because da’hg is Jesse’s father’s clansman. People 
who know each other well don’t get mad. A few people here can’t 
stand a joke on them. They will make fun of you and enjoy it, but 
when you joke back, they can’t stand it. Dji’wa’isthat way. He is 
the only one I can recall, who is like that.” 

(4) They continue dancing and speaking until all that has been prepared to give 
away is distributed—that is, it is given over to the conductor to divide equally 
among the dancers at the end of the ceremony. Then the Speaker [hatha’*ha’] 
has to announce that all that was prepared to give away is exhausted. Then he 
says, “If anyone wants to continue, then he must furnish his own presents”— 
perhaps pennies, or an apple which he may have in his pocket. Sometimes they 


give these presents to the one who has got up the dance; they claim they make 
medicine that way [the idea being that the patient may buy medicine]. 


62 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY | BuLy. 156 


The singer does not have to speak. 

Money stood up in floor cracks to test agility of dancers.—As at Onondaga, pennies 
are frequently stood up in a crack in the floor to test the agility of dancers. 

If you pick it up it is yours. The dancer bends over first, trying to pick it up 
in his mouth. A dancer may try several times and finally pick it up with his hand. 
I once saw a fellow who could not bend down on his knee, so they set it up elevated 
on a stick above the floor (6 inches). If a dancer succeeds in picking up in his 
mouth a coin which a Speaker stands on edge, next time they will lay it flat. 
There used to be dancers around here who could pick up a flat penny—the trick is 
to lay your ear flat on the floor. I could never do it although I used to dance quite 
a lot. ([Falling-day did not say that this behavior was at all symbolic of the 
feeding birds.] 


(5) ‘“‘The singers continue to sing as long as anyone continues 
speaking. If no one speaks after the gifts are gone, that is the end of 
the dancing.” 

There is a special song at the end, but Falling-day has never heard 
it called at Tonawanda ‘‘to lay down the fans.” 

After the last song when they have finished dancing, they lay down the fans and 
rattles. They get up and retire to change their clothes. 

Now, the conductor divides the crackers and packages of chewing tobacco in as 


many equal piles as there are dancers. It is ready when they return. Then he 
distributes to each one his share of crackers and tobacco. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE FEAST 


“After that, they bite the meat that is passed like crows 
(wa-diga’hga’”’). It is chicken. The conductor, for he is always a 
man, passes the chicken counterclockwise.” Falling-day never saw 
a pig’s head—has heard of its being used occasionally. ‘‘Dew Eagle 
will eat any kind of meat.” 

Falling-day is anxious to know what kind of a bird shada’ge-a”’ is 
in English. He thinks it is a pretty bird like the eagle that lives 
above or in the clouds somewhere—not a dirty or ugly bird like the 
condor. ‘‘They say this is a pretty bird. I think it is lamajery (??)— 
like the eagle and about the same size.”” He knows only one kind. 


Now the Speaker has to announce that they are through. He speaks for the 
host [hod¢’Sa-ni-], and his words are as if they were the host’s words. He is thank- 
ful that so many people are willing to come to the meeting, and he thanks the 
messenger who brought them there and conducted the ritual. Then he thanks 
everybody, the singers and dancers, etc. Then he says he hopes that this cere- 
mony will help the sick one, no matter what ails him. He asks the Creator to 
make strength for this one. After that, he says “‘let’s all hope that we have helped 
her [the one who got up the dance]. After that, then thanks (gang’nyok) again. 
Then he says we must wait for the corn soup, or hominy—anyway the feast 
(tgaya’swa-ye-’). 


The conductor has to divide up the corn soup. There are no chunks 
of meat. (1) The host has to fill the pail of the conductor; (2) now 


Fanron] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 63 


the conductor has to get a pail from the Speaker (hatha’-ha’) and 
give him his soup first after himself; (3) at the command from the 
conductor, ‘“‘Ready now, set down your pails [kettles], [ha’ o-ng¢h 
djing’dza’ge’g’), and they set their pails down near the kettle;” (4) 
when the manager has filled the pails, going ladle by ladle from pail 
to pail in a counterclockwise circuit about the kettle, he cries, “‘ready 
now again pick them up”’ (ha’o neh nai’ dgsadje’’k) and the members 
retrieve their pails, and as he says, ‘“‘Now scatter and fly whither you 
will” (o’neh ne’ ganyo’ ge’s he’sga‘die’’’¢), they file out the door and 
disperse in the darkness. 


To supplement Falling-day’s account of the Eagle Society ritual, 
I consulted Hair-burned-off, Speaker of Tonawanda Longhouse and 
Speaker for the Eagle Society at Helper’s and He-is-coming’s meeting. 
Of course, he knew that I had attended several rituals. 

(1) When the medicine company has gathered at the designated 
place, the Speaker arises, removes his hat and says: 


Now you all listen—members of the medicine company (honotcino’’g¢’shg). 

We have come to this house [hong’sgwadenyg’]. We came because a man was 
appointed to go from house to house to tell the members of the society to come to 
this place. 

That is all for the moment. 

Now we must say what the Creator has ordained we should say whenever we 
start our ceremonies. (Here we return thanks to all the spirits up to the Creator. 
Sometimes I only say a few words, but this depends on how I feel, how serious is 
the occasion, the time we commence, and if it is late I only say a few.) 

Now the speaker mentions the name of the person who has invited all who belong 
to the society. Now this person that is putting up the ceremony of striking 
{gane’’gwii’e’’] belongs to the society, and he has sponsored it before when he was 
pretty ill, and it has helped him. After the ceremony he became better, but since 
that time he has never had any subsequent ceremony. So now he is sick again. 
He has used some medicine: the roots, bark, and leaves of the various plants 
which our Creator has given us to use, but it does not seem to help him. Now 
he is recalling that he belongs to the Eagle Society. He thinks that perhaps if he 
puts up the ceremony of Striking-the-stick or Shaking-a-fan, he might get better 
again. He has been considering for several days how he will sponsor the dance. 
It is difficult because he is helpless. His folks [relatives and housemates] have 
discovered what he wants, and so they have decided to help him. They have 
decided to procure all the things that we use when we hold the Eagle Dance. 

Now all of you have come to help him, and we must use our power [gaha’sdeshe’] 
to help him. Now his folks are ready now to have the striking ritual to help him 
recover from the sickness. They have provided a feast, and it is ready: hominy 
corn [’ononde-’] and pig’s (bear’s) meat [gwisgwis owa-’] for the soup, since after 
the ceremony we must have that in which to dip our bills [¢dwadenyonda’so’] '® 
(for this is the feast which we eat after the Eagle Dance) ; his folks have ready also 
presents to distribute on striking the stick [yene’egwa’’istha’]; and they have pro- 
vided that which you like to eat [egdiga’hga.-’] and it will go around after the cer- 


18 Any member of the medicine company—any bird—has a bill, especially Eagle. 


64 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Buu. 156 


emony when we say ¢swa’tcing’ge’’sho?eswe-he-k o-ne wa’agwaga’hga-’—you of 
the medicine society, all of you now, we are about to feast like ravens.” 

Now then they appointed a man to notify the members of the Eagle Society. 
Now he is already to commence. He has a man to sing [name mentioned] and two 
to help him. [There may be only one helper, but there should always be two.] 
Now when we sponsor certain kinds of dances, a ritual of any kind of animal so- 
ciety, when we wish them to help us we must use the genuine tobacco which our 
Creator has given us. We must throw it in the fire. Now he [the conductor] 
hasappointedamanwhowilldoit{[mentionsthenameofthe man]. That is all. 

(2) Tobacco invocation.—Then comes the tobacco invocation. 


I have heard them sing the first phrase of the song when offering the tobacco 
at Canada. Alex Clute [Seneca of Tonawanda] used to do that here, but he got 
that somewhere else. He brought that here from Cattaraugus. Sano’’gai-s 
(long-horns) burned the tobacco at an Eagle Dance at my daughter’s at New- 
town, Cattaraugus, when I was visiting there and he sang a little ways through 
the first song. This is not a Tonawanda custom. 

Hair-burned-off heard about an old man here at Tonawanda who, 
when he offered the tobacco and said, ‘“‘You of the medicine company, 
you have this to pick at, now he says ‘here is your tobacco that you 
may hear our words, now here is your bird for eating,’ ” went so far 
as to pick up the bird and throw it in the fire, saying, ‘“You have got 
the bird, now it is up to you to eat;it.” “Now the dancers and singers 
and speakers had nothing to eat. That is howhe did when they asked 
him to make the tobacco offering.” 

(3) Then they have a little meat which is cut in small slices; the 
conductor gives that to each member. 

(4) Now after that the conductor gives the drum to someone. A 
man hollers hu‘ hu‘ and the man who was given the drum strikes and 
makes a speech, presenting the drum to the appointed singer. He 
says: 

Well, I was appointed first by the conductor to sing and so I have the drum 
and the rattles, and I have brought them here to the place he designated, and I 
was ready to sing. But after I heard the Speaker mention the name of another, 
I notice that he has nothing. Now he must use the drum and rattles. I will 
lend it to him for the night, but I will not give it to him. 

(5) Whoop and Song I.—Now the singer takes the drum and the 
dancer yells and Song I commences. ° 

The conductor gives someone the rattle and feather fan. 

He strikes the stick and says about the same things as the preced- 
ing speaker. The striker announces that he has the fan and rattle 
because he is a member of the society, but that he sees the appointed 
dancers lack fans and rattles, so he decides to lend one set in lieu of 
dancing himself as he pretended to have been invited. 

11 “The medicine company [hongtcino’ge’] are ravens [ga’hga’shg’]. The head ones are the giant ravens— 
singers [ga’hga’go-wa-’]; crow [ga’ ga-]. We tear off meat in our bills like the great birds whom we imitate, 


crying ga’-’. Raven is also messenger [hadja’swas] for the Eagle Society and the Great Medicine Company. 
Whenever he sees anything, he hesitates and cries out the news,’’ 


Fanon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 65 


(6) Dancer whoops and Song IJ.—Then the Speaker (hatha’-ha’) 
gets up and announces ; 

We have already heard in the announcements that they have provided presents 
for the strikers. Now I have them here.'¥8 Now the conductor gave me orders 
to say that whoever strikes may have his own way to say whatever he wishes 
when he strikes, but he must not use any bad language that will hurt people. 
We have some foolish words [gawenowe’hda:she’], but we know just how far to 
go and yet not hurt anyone’s feelings. One should hope that the sick one will 
get better. Perhaps someone will wish the sick one may recover, and he may 
return thanks to our Creator who has given us our lives and this earth to roam 
on, and he may consider that he may get help by asking the four messengers or 
the Creator to help the sick one to go about again on the earth. 


(7) Whoop and Song III.— 


“‘Now it is open for anyone to speak. 

“Sometimes two strike at once, as they did at Helper’s and they 
both continue to speak at once until one quits.” 

He recalled how He-strikes-the-rushes had ridiculed Awl-breaker 
at Helper’s meeting, and explained why Awl-breaker went home early. 

“Jesse was too hard on da’ho and he left. Jesse went too far. 
Da’hg did not show up at the next few meetings of the society, and 
then he finally returned.” 

Hair-burned-off seems entirely unfamiliar with Jesse’s concept of a 
joking privilege with one’s father’s clansman. I went on to explain 
what I understood the old Newtown pattern to be—spatial separation 
of the moieties and joking across the room. He insists that this 
did not occur at the Newtown meetings which he attended. 

You can joke anybody so long as you don’t hurt him. Jesse went too far. 
Da’ho is a much better speaker than Jesse. He is witty and Jesse was getting 
beat. Jesse finally arose and said, “If he wants to fight with me, I’ll get the 
better of him.”” Da’ho did not reply. After another song, Jesse got up a second 
time and said, “I frequently see him returning from Akron. Next time I will 
stop him and talk with him.”’ Now I myself would be afraid. No one quite 


understood what Jesse meant. Anyone would feel anxious. Jesse could not take 
it because he was getting beat. 


The general idea seems to be that Jesse should have had more 


respect for an older man, particularly one of the chiefs and ritual 
speakers, who is usually good natured and quite defenseless. 


(8) The Speaker makes this announcement: 


After they have used up the presents provided by the host, then the conductor 
tells the Speaker [to announce] that this is the last strike to be made on the host, 
but that this should not end the dance, merely because the presents provided for 
the strikers to distribute are all gone. Whoever would strike again must dig in 
his pocket and furnish for himself presents to give away with his striking, his 
shoes, perhaps his pants, a cow [this is considered a joke] because it is always 


18 In making this announcement at Helper’s he said that even the wax paper on the soda crackers was 
medicine—good for blisters. ‘The idea is to make the sick one laugh and in that way forget his pains.” 


66 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


money. In the older days whatever they gave was considered medicine for the 
sick one. Whoever has money may strike, etc. That’s all. 


(9) The dance continues as long as anyone continues to speak. 

Then they sing a special song which is slower than the others, 
slowing up toward the end. This is called “laying down the fans” 
[yene’eye’ndahgwa’]. Here the dancers lay down their fans and 
rattles, and the singers lay the drum and rattles on the floor. ‘Then 
the conductor picks up the drum and rattles and the fans which they 
have laid on the floor, and he puts them away. 

“‘Now he divides up the gifts: the crackers and tobacco. He gives 
it to the singer, his helper, the dancers, the Speaker, and the tobacco 
thrower, and himself, dividing it equally.”’ 

(10) Then he grabs the bird and says, ‘‘ You of the society have in 
mind now to eat [swatcino’ge’shg’ eswehe‘k o’n¢e wa’a‘gwaga’hga”’].”’ 


The society say ga” [high tone] like crows. 

He goes over to the host. He passes the bird to the sick man first. [When 
conductor] I go next to the head singer and his helpers and then the dancers, and 
then I go around to everyone who belongs to the society so that they can have a 
bite . . . until they get tired . . . Then I take home what is left . . . the bones 
[he shrugged his shoulders and grinned]. The conductor gets whatever is left of 
the feast. Sometimes there is a bit left for soup. 

Then he tells the Speaker [and the speaker announces this—he is speaking for 
the host]: 

Now, we have done. People have in mind that we have done. And therefore, 
I give thanks to the singers and also the dancers and the people who have come to 
this dance. Tell them that I give thanks. 

Then the Speaker arises. 

Now we have in mind that we have finished the ritual. In the first part we 
heard that the sick one has been ill for sometime. Now he wants the Medicine 
Company to help him because he belongs to that society. It has helped him before. 
He hopes that it will help him again, but we also must hope that this dance will 
help him. So we all came here to help him. We hope that the Four Messengers 
and the Creator will give us the power to help him with this dance [ceremony] 
so that he will recover and his people will feel better; it will elevate their minds. 
We must keep that in our minds after we get up and we have all gone out. 

So now his folks have hominy for the feast. 'The conductor will divide it for us. 

Now we have done, but we must go through again that which the Creator has 
given us to return thanks to the Four Messengers, our great leader [Handsome Lake, 
the prophet] and our Creator where he resides [and he repeats the gang’ nygk]. 
Now we have finished. 


The conductor divides the feast. He cries, ‘Come now set down 
your pails! |ha’ o-n¢ djing’dza’ge’a’].” 

When he finishes, he tells the Speaker that he is done. 

Then the Speaker says, “‘pick up your pails and fly away—go where 
you are wont to fly [{ha’ o-neh nai’ dosa-dje’:k o’ne ganyo” ge¢’s 
h¢’’sga-die’’¢].”’ 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 67 


THE SONGS 


The present name for the Eagle Dance at Tonawanda is gane’’ 
gwi’e’’, ‘to strike a fan,’”’ but Robert Shanks, who recorded it for 
M. C. Randle and the writer in 1936, declared, ‘‘The real name of this 
dance is gane’’oda‘dg’, to shake the feather fan.” (Thus it appears 
in Morgan’s list as Scalp Dance.) The speeches referred to war 
records. ‘They used to wear a feather bustle on the rump and between 
the shoulders, Shanks thought, but he alone made this statement. 

(1) Before every song an appointed whooper shouts: ‘‘pa‘hai-he:.”’ 

Leader: “‘yowehane.”’ 

Chorus: ‘‘yowehane.”’ ¥ 

Here someone presents the drum to the first singer or, later, a fan 
and rattle to a dancer. Every time there is a song, one at a time they 
present: (1) drum, (2) horn rattle to first singer’s helper, (3) a fan 
and rattle to a dancer, (4) (or (5)) someone takes over distribution of 
presents. The order is whoop ‘“‘pa hai’,” then song, speech, 
present drum or what else, dance. Dancers must have horn or tiny 
gourd rattles. 

(2) Second introductory song: 


waheya waheyong heyo’ong: 
(3) In the middle of this song the dance begins, recognizable by 


change in tempo. 
waheya waheya heyong’ 
goyaheya heyong’ 
waheya waheya heyong’”? 
(4) (7) wiyeha wiyeha wiyeba néhe’eh 
we’ha’yo wiyeha ne’he’’yeh (eh) 


(5) In the first rendition of the text the leader with his drum 


sings alone. 
yonowiyo: honowiyo’oh:] 
yong’wiyo nowi’yo 
waheya ng’wiyo-o-o no’wiyo 
goyaheya heya’a‘ 


(6) goyoheya heya’a‘:] 
(ya) Fed 
(8) weyaha wiyahao 


wiye yane(ni) ng hanehe:] 
:weyaha: ning hanehe: 

(9) weha, hiyo’ong’9 heyo’ong’: 
weha yo-ngo heyo’gng’:]} 

19 This song resembles one of the Little Water Medicine renewal songs, to which rite Eagle Dance is linked. 
(Shanks says the priest doesn’t sing. After tobacco invocation at Cattaraugus and Allegany, the priest 
hums over the first song before the ritual commences.) —W. N. F. 

20 Shanks says “repeat this song twice.’”? This song and the other would be used twice in its (their) 
entirety, stopping for a speech and then repeating it before singing the next song.—W.N.F. 


68 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY | BULL. 156 


After this came several optional songs, omitted by Shanks. 


(10) This is the final song, when they lay down the fans. The 
dancers know this is the end of the dance. It is usually sung when 
the speeches have begun to pall—humor has run out of the meeting. 


yowadjine’he gonodiya’awe(wi) 
heyong yowadjine 
ya’ahe heyo’ong’:] 


End of song, not complete on record, should end with short 


“heyo’’ong’.” 


THE ONONDAGA CONDOR DANCE 


At Onondaga Reservation, south of Syracuse, N. Y., I readily 
found two boys who had danced in recent Eagle Dance meetings. 
Floyd Henhawk, Eel Clan, a slight likable young lad beyond 20, who 
had lost an eye at jacksticks or lacrosse, said he had danced at the 
last meeting. He promptly recited a fair outline of the ritual, but 
he recommended his friend, George Allison Thomas, an Onondaga of 
the same clan, then age 25, who proved reticent but well-informed. 
I had met his father, Chief George Thomas, who the boys told me 
is a speaker at longhouse meetings. We worked at the Thomas 
house, and Mrs. Thomas’ remarks, interjected from her station 
near the cook stove, comprise much the best of the following 
information. Where possible it is credited to the informant. To- 
ward noon, Chief George Thomas arrived home to confirm and 
supplement our morning’s progress. 

At Onondaga, as on the Seneca Reservations, the Eagle Dance 
Society membership is composed of followers of the Handsome Lake 
Religion—‘ the real and genuine people” [(heng’gwe hgweka’:’) (ggwe’’ 
oweka,”’ (S.))]. 

The ritual (gane’’gwa'e’) (gane’’gwi’ e” (S.)) and the member- 
ship (hadine’gwa/’’is) are derived from one stem with the Seneca. 

Informants seemed unfamiliar with the history of the society except 
that “it has been carried on for a long time.” ‘Before Handsome 
Lake came here (1815) the Onondagas used liquor at the dances; 
since then they have food to eat.’? Mrs. Thomas had heard her 
grandfather relate the legend of the boy who was carried away in a 
hollow log by the bird, but she did not offer it as an origin legend. 
Chief Thomas said it has been handed down for a long time, although 
his wife thought he might know the history. 

Onondaga do not associate Eagle (skadjie’-na’) with the dance 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 69 


but a bird like the condor whom they call ha’’guks.2!_ This bird lives 
beyond sight; Chief George Thomas knew of but one kind (species). 


EQUIPMENT 


The society meets when anyone is taken ill. Prerequisites for a 
meeting are: (1) Indian tobacco (oye’gwa ho’-we) for the invocation; 
(2) about 12 packages of chewing tobacco for speakers to distribute 
among the dancers; (3) soup (ono-nda’),” or specifically hulled white 
corn soup (oneho’ -hgwa’);”* (4) a chicken to boil in the soup; and (5) 
a feather fan. The Onondaga fan has 4 to 5 feathers suspended 
vertically from the quills, instead of horizontally. 

““My younger boy belongs to the society. At the [recent] New 
Year’s dance, somebody promised that they would give him one. 
They have to make it” * (Mrs. T.). 

The dancer uses any rattle (gasda’we¢’she’) from the stock of cow- 
horn rattles. He holds the fan in his left hand and the rattle in the 
right, depending on whether the dancer is right- or left-handed. 
If he is left-handed he holds the rattle in his left hand (sayeno’ga-di’). 
“Right hand is ha-y¢ene’hgwi” (F. H.). Onondaga to shake a fan 
(gane’edakdi’) is cognate for the old Seneca (gane’’oda-doq’). 

“Sometimes they still stand money up in a crack in the floor. 
If a dancer can get it in his mouth while dancing, it is his. My son 
there could do that’? (Mrs. T.). Each dancer has one fan and one 
rattle according to the number of dancers. Sometimes there is 
one dancer, but “if you can get four or five, that is preferable” (Mrs. 
1 bey 

Chicken feathers are used for the fans, but hawk feathers are 
preferable, or better still eagle feathers (G. T.). 

Mrs. Thomas has seen bark cylinder rattles, but white men have 
been continually buying things at Onondaga for years. She never 
heard of a whistle in the Condor Dance. 

A query concerning setting a twined corn-husk tray filled with 
Indian tobacco on the floor for the members elicited the reply, ‘‘They 
only put tobacco in the stove [invocation]. They do not smoke a 
pipe. I have only seen the pipe used at Condolences’ (Mrs. T.). 

Instead of the regular striped crotched pole and beater, “‘they use 
any stick for a beater (ene’gwa’’ist‘a’).” 

31 Chief Howard Pierce, Tonawanda Seneca, Bear Clan, claims that once while he was a tribal delegate 
to a Senate Indian hearing, he saw the bird, a condor, in the Washington Zoo. The Seneca call it ‘cloud 
dweller.”” Howard has dreamed of the bird flying down and dancing beforehim. He burned alittle Indian 
sacred tobacco which he carried and it flew back. The Cayuga and Onondaga in Canada know it as 
i a ee (S.). 

23 ono’hgwa’ (S.). 

% During the dream guessing, whoever guesses what the person needs—some object symbolic of the ritual, 


a friend, etc.—has to furnish that object and sponsor the ritual implied in the proposition, This is also 
an old Seneca custom. (He-strikes-the-rushes.) 


70 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLn. 156 


“We get chickens and put them in the corn soup. Long ago we 
always had that [chickens for the corn soup]. We put two chickens 
in one boiler’ (Mrs. T.). So apparently the wash boiler has become 
the cooking vessel for feast soups at Onondaga as among the modern 


Seneca. 
MEMBERSHIP 


Membership in the society comes through sickness and a cure by 
the ritual. Mrs. T. considers dreams an infrequent mode of entrance. 
Usually some fortuneteller (haksa’kdgk) tells the person to join. 
He uses tea for divination. 

To a query about Seneca hene’-yo, Mrs. T. distinguished for 
Onondaga, “‘hene’-yok is a prophet and he can tell what happened 
way back. An old man [here at Onondaga] was called this as a 
personal name; but he did make prophecies.”’ 

““My son [George, Jr.] would have been one had they taken care 
of it [the caul over his head]. 

“They should have preserved that, instead they let it go down the 
river [Onondaga Creek]. I wish they had kept it. Yes, I wish they 
did; anyway, I can tell [prophesy] pretty good sometimes” (George 
A. Thomas). 

On questioning, there seems to be no special training for clair- 
voyants. It is born in them. There is no ceremony to make those 
who were born with a caul more potent.2> Mrs. Thomas’ little 
younger son was sick, and the fortuneteller used tea. The fortune- 
teller said he needed Condor Dance to be performed for him. George 
Alanson Thomas does not belong to the society. However, Floyd 
Henhawk is a member. Floyd was sick, but he does not remember 
how and why he joined when he was quite young. 


Preparation for a meeting.—Mrs. T. said, 


They used to hang the fan out near the fence on a pole all day before the 
meeting. There was only one fan on the pole, just one. 

Then a man goes from house to house to notify the people. He is called ‘‘news 
carrier’ [chot‘ogdindi’]. He tells what kind of a dance, the place where it will 
occur, he instructs the person to take a pail, and says, ‘‘You go there and strike 
the stick and talk [gswane’gwa’e’s’a’].”” It is a long message. They generally 
have it at night. He chooses the singers and dancers and notifies them. He 
tells the singer to be sure and go there and sing. 

At night they all go straight to the meeting. Having arrived, they goin. One 
sits anywhere. Then the conductor arranges the seating when the dance [ritual] 
begins. The messenger becomes the ritual manager or conductor, “he takes 
charge’ [hoste‘i-s-di’; hosdeisdg’ (S.)]. 


35 At Tonawanda, Robert Tahamont’s son, Dave, was born with a caul, and Harrison Ground suggested 
putting him through some ceremony to increase his potency. Nevertheless, he is reputedly clever at finding 
things. The belief is strong. 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 71 


MOIETY PATTERNING 


The dual division seems an important aspect of Onondaga cere- 
monial life. Mrs. T. remarked, “I am Eel Clan; Turtle Clan has to 
help me with everything.” The phratries take their names from the 
place they meet during their separation for dream guessing at Mid- 
winter Festival. 


They of the mudhouse (dehodidaige’) : They of the longhouse, ‘‘Four house 
corners” (gaye-hodinghske-) : 


Eel Turtle 
Bear (now extinct) Beaver 
Deer Wolf 
Hawk Snipe 


Moiety patterning is preferable at the Condor Dance but appar- 
ently not strictly followed. They do not sit opposite facing each 
other according to phratries. 


RITUAL PATTERN 


An appointed speaker returns thanks. 

A priest burns tobacco, and the song commences during the prayer. 
Mrs. Thomas remarked, ‘‘It always gives me shivers when they sing 
the first song while he is still burning the tobacco.’ 

When he finishes speaking, the tempo increases and the dancing 
commences. The drummer (tainagetskwa:s, ‘‘he raises the song’’) 
sings the first song without the drum. 

Speeches.—There is a whooper. Notes do not indicate that he 
whoops during tobacco invocation, before the song. 

An appointed speaker interrupts the song by beating the stick and 
presents the drum and rattles together to the first and second singers 
(hadenawa’se’‘k). Everyone knows who is going to speak. He says 
they have designated a certain fellow to sing, but he himself is a good 
singer, well able to do so, but that he will accede to their wishes 
Gh). 

Whoop and Song II.—There is a man appointed to present the fan. 
Usually the fan belongs to the sick person, and the speaker is to give 
it to the dancer. Moiety alinement is said to be unimportant. 

The second speaker in presenting the ‘‘flag’’2? tells that he, himself, was invited 
to this place and he has brought along the fan that he has been using many years 
since the time when he was still young and able to dance. You see old men can’t 


bend; they are too stiff to dance. They are no longer flexible. Then he gives 
the fan to the dancer. [F. H. H.; gives fan and rattle.] 


28 The song which the priest sings while burning tobacco ascends on the tobacco fumes to the Dew Eagle. 
The Seneca say thisis the only part of the ritual that he hears. The priest waves thefansonthesmoke. (He- 
strikes-the-rushes.) 

#1 The calumet brought north to Albany by the peace-making Catawba in the mideighteenth century 
was first likened to a flag (p. 166). 


72 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ Bun. 156 


Whoop and Song IJI—A man has been appointed to present rattles 
to the extra dancers. There are ordinarily as many speakers as there 
are dancers, and they speak one at a time. For the next dancer the 
speaker repeats that he is no longer flexible enough to dance but that 
he will give the rattle to the dancer. ‘Yes, sometimes he tells the 
dancer to try and beat the other dancer.” 

The dancer is called gane’’gwa’e’ deha’tk‘wa’, ‘‘striking-fan 
dancer.” 

Whoop and Song IV.—A man (at Tonawanda it is the Speaker) 
makes a speech about the tobacco which he says is to be distributed 
by the speakers. He says, “All of you are [swadwenonya’’da’] to 
talk and transfer the tobacco to a pile for the dancers and singers.” 
After the ceremony (‘Gives one tobacco’’), the headman distributes 
it among the dancers and singers. 

Whoop and Song V, etc-—‘‘Every successive speaker transfers a 
package of tobacco [from the pile] over to the conductor, and he puts 
it aside for the dancers and singers” (F. H. H.). 

Whoop and Song VI, etc.—‘When the tobacco which the sick 
person has bought for the ritual is gone, the speakers may use money 
and present it to the sick person at the same time wishing him early 
recovery from his ailments. The speaker tells him to buy medicine”’ 
(Mrs. T.). 

“Now when they use money, they joke and make fun of each other 
to stimulate the sick person so that he will forget his illness”’ (Mrs. T.). 

All the speakers are men. Jokes are exchanged back and forth, but 
a speaker can tease anyone present: any relative, his own brother, or 
his father (Mrs. T. and boys). 

‘When the tobacco is gone, the joking helps to heal the patient; but 
previously while giving tobacco, they do not joke, but ask the Creator 
to grant favors and help the sick person” (Chief G. Thomas). 

With reference to joking, ‘‘We are divided into clans and there are 
two divisions. When we gather at public places people of one division 
should get together for they are brothers.”” Moiety joking is common, 
it is reciprocal, and it is preferred; “‘but if your brother jokes you, you 
may answer. No matter who jokes, it is approprate to answer.” 

Regarding a joking relationship between children of clansmen, I 
merely learned that people who are related joke; it depends on the 
people, and the whole practice is not seemingly rigidly patterned. As 
among the Seneca, this whole pattern of striking and joking occurs 
also in the war dances. 

The balance of the ritual is quite similar to the Tonawanda variant, 
and one notes the linguistic similarities to the Onondaga and Cayuga 
variants at Grand River, Ontario, which may mean that the ceremony 


FEnTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 73 


prevailed among the Onondaga and Cayuga before the present Canadi- 
an Iroquois migrated to Grand River. 


THE EAGLE DANCE ON GRAND RIVER (SIX NATIONS 
RESERVE), CANADA 


The Eagle Dance ritual at the Six Nations Reserve has been de- 
scribed for the Cayuga by Speck (1949, pp. 111-113), the Onondaga 
Longhouse version of the songs is available on a record with a brief 
notice of the Eagle Society (Fenton, 1942, pp. 29-30), and both the 
Onondaga and Cayuga rituals are described and analyzed by Kurath in 
her contribution to this volume. Only new material will be added 


here. 
THE ONONDAGA CEREMONY 


At Onondaga Longhouse, the second day of the Midwinter Festival 
is given over to rites performed in response to dreams. Participation 
is restricted to members, and the sixth listed is Eagle Dance Society 
(gane’gwa’’e’’, “Striking a dried skin.’’) (I have often wondered 
whether a scalp was formerly struck or waved in this ceremony? Had 
Simeon Gibson (pl. 16, 2) lived we might have made a book of his 
notes begun in the summer of 1940.) 

In the private rite described by Mrs. Kurath, the Logan family 
dominated the roles. My impression is that the rite is less formal here 
than among the Seneca. It is also less elaborate. 

I have long suspected that the Eagle Dance of the Iroquois on Grand 
River is derived from that of the Seneca. Kurath has now demon- 
strated identical and related songs in three cycles: Seneca, Onondaga, 
and Cayuga. But there are also close resemblances between the lore 
of the ceremony at Onondaga, New York, and Grand River. There 
was a strong strain of Seneca participation in the Onondaga Longhouse 
on Grand River. The Seneca band was small and the Seneca Long- 
house stands close by. They exchange singers. The Onondaga and 
Seneca have intermarried, and Seneca chiefs have been speakers of 
Onondaga Longhouse. The maternal antecedents of Chief John A. 
Gibson, the most renowned speaker of Onondaga Longhouse, came out 
to Grand River from the Seneca Reservation at Buffalo Creek. It was 
Tom Smoke, a Seneca chief, who always participated at Onondaga 
Longhouse, who taught the Eagle Dance to Onondaga Chief Joseph 
Logan (Fenton, 1942, p. 30). 


THE SONGS 


Since about half of the 16 songs recorded are included on the pub- 
lished record and the texts are printed in the program notes, they are 
not reprinted. I leave the description of the dance to Kurath who has 


74 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Buut. 156 


transcribed the Logan version, analyzed it, and compared it with other 
local and tribal variants. 

Chief Logan (pl. 16, 2), in the course of our recording, related a 
variant of the roc or bird abductor legend, which will be included in 
the appropriate place (p. 90). 


THE CAYUGA EAGLE SOCIETY CEREMONY AT SOUR SPRINGS 
LONGHOUSE 


The Cayuga Eagle Society ceremony originally was contributed to 
the dissertation by Speck. That chapter has now been published 
verbatim (Speck, 1949, pp. 111-112), with substantial additions which 
Speck added after reading my 1987 dissertation in manuscript and 
making further inquiries of his informants (Speck, 1949, pp. 112-114). 
Speck’s account and his observations have now been checked and sub- 
stantially added to by Kurath, who describes the public ceremony of 
the Eagle Society which she witnessed at Sour Springs in 1948. The 
reader is referred to her description (p. 232). She alsohas recorded and 
transcribed the songs. The dance at Cayuga resembles the Canadian 
Onondaga variant; the ritual is less elaborate than the Seneca; but 
moiety patterning is shared with the Seneca. 

Discussion.—The researches of Goldenweiser, Waugh, Speck, and 
now Kurath at Grand River establish the Canadian Iroquois version 
of the Eagle Dance as essentially similar to the Onondaga variant 
in New York. We find the same terminology and the same type of 
feather fan. As at Tonawanda and Onondaga, chicken is the feast 
animal. The Seneca of Cattaraugas and Allegany Reservations had 
the ceremony in its most elaborate form (Parker, 1913b,p.124). There 
is no question that the Iroquois variants are historically one complex 
whole. Further, Speck’s other researches at Sour Springs Longhouse 
disclose that the “striking” pattern occurs in the same series of war 
dances as among the Seneca. We are treating with local variants of 
the same ceremonial complex. However, we must not forget how 
real the local differences are to the Iroquois hailing from different 
local ceremonial groups. To the individuals, these differences of 
ceremonial detail determine whether or not he feels comfortable in a 
strange community where the ritualistic setting is quite like the one 
at home, but the mode of procedure differs, say, as between ‘‘high” 
and “low” church. Etiquette and rearing demand that the individ- 
ual conform to the new way, but after he has lived in the community 
for a time, his own local tradition asserts itself and he essays changes 
which he feels are justified. Frequently, he is misunderstood. Then 
returning home, the process works the other way. He-strikes-the- 
rushes has frequently remarked how different things are from place to 
place, that having lived at Newtown, Coldspring, and Tonawanda 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 75 


he notices these variants, but that his father told him as a small boy, 
“‘Wherever you go, my son, do not be forward. Conform to their 
ways!’ Nevertheless, he leans to the old Newtown ways, and we 
have observed how in one Eagle Dance for Helper and He-is-coming 
at Tonawanda his behavior was quite misunderstood. 


THE IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AS A 
CULTURAL PHENOMENON 


SALIENT FEATURES 


The Iroquois Eagle Dance illustrates the pattern phenomenon in 
ritual and it permits the free expression of personality within set 
forms. It is one of several medicine societies which have been termed 
“secret” (Parker, 1913 b), but they are quite well known to all non- 
members living within the so-called “pagan” or “longhouse”’ com- 
munities at Coldspring on the Allegheny River, Newtown on Cat- 
taraugus Reservation, and at Tonawanda Reservation. Similar 
societies prevail at Onondaga, near Syracuse, and among the Onondaga 
and Cayuga communities at Six Nations Reserve, Ontario. Their 
present distribution coincides with that of the Handsome Lake 
Religion (Parker, 1913 a; Fenton, 1936 b; Deardorff, 1951). Member- 
ship includes both sexes and is gained by having had a dream of a 
specific type, or by having been cured by the society. The society 
holds private curing rites in family homes, but at anniversaries visi- 
tors are more welcome to ‘‘come hear the songs,” as they are when 
the society convenes publicly at the longhouse. 

The society calls itself ‘“‘the strikers” (hadine’gwa’’is) or ‘“‘the 
medicine company” (honog’tcino’’ge’) meaning an association of men 
and of mystic animals who have the power of transforming them- 
selves into men to participate with their human associates during 
the ritual. The ritual is addressed to a species of eagles that wheel 
in flight high in the heavens amid clouds; the Seneca call them variously 
the ‘‘cloud-dwellers, they of the vapors” (’o’shada’gé a-’) or (shada’ 
ge’a-’) or the Dew Eagles; Onondaga (ha’’gaks); and they have the 
power of restoring life to wilting things. In Seneca, the song is called 
“striking-a-fan song” (gane’’gwi4’e’ oeng’) or “‘shaking-a-fan”’ (gane’’- 
oda-dg’) at Tonawanda; gane’gwi’e’ in Onondaga is thought to 
mean “striking a dried skin.” Locally individual singers include 
songs that may not be part of the common repertoire of all the singers. 
A song leader with a water drum and his helpers with horn rattles 
accompany a singular dance in which pairs of youths or men, holding 
a rattle in the right hand and a feather fan in the left, crouch swaying 
and advance to pick up objects in their mouths, and retreat hopping, 

982306—53——6 


76 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


in imitation of birds feeding on the gound. Near the end of the song, 
a speaker, almost invariably a man, strikes a pole and interrupts the 
ritual long enough to praise his host or the dancers, to recite some 
record of personal achievement, relate a humorous anecdote, or 
ridicule himself or another. Then he distributes presents to his 
victims. After the dance, the master of ceremonies, or conductor, 
passes an animal head or a chicken among the guests, who cry like 
crows and bite at it. These are the salient features. 


A CENTURY OF ETHNOLOGY 


L. H. Morgan published in 1851 the first scientific study of a primi- 
tive people after 10 years of field work among the descendants of the 
tribes that formed the Iroquois Confederacy. His now classic League 
of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois, contains an account of ceremonies 
then current at Tonawanda Longhouse, yet he devotes little space 
to the almost nightly winter meetings of medicine societies and refers 
to them only as “concerts,” saying nothing of their imputed medicinal 
power (Morgan, 1901, vol. 1, pp. 276-277). We recognize in his list 
of thirty dances, number “27 Ga-na-un-da-do, Scalp Dance, For 
Males,” which he marks as both costumed and obsolete (ibid., vol. 1, 
pp. 278-279). Shaking-a-fan is the Tonawanda name for the Eagle 
or Bird Dance, and it is by no means obsolete. Examining Morgan’s 
field notes partly resolves this puzzle. 

Morgan obtained most of his information at Tonawanda and by 
correspondence with his extraordinary interpreter and collaborator, 
Ely S. Parker. A list of dances among the Senecas of New York, by 
Ely S. Parker, dated May 1848, was in the manuscript collections of 
Dr. Arthur C. Parker, apparently the same list which Ely furnished 
Morgan for writing the League. Of the 39 dances, “33. Ga-na-un- 
da-doh, Shaking a bird’s tail, or Scalp Dance”’ is marked obsolete; 
and ‘‘Calumet Dance” appears as 39 without its Seneca name or any 
additional comment. One wonders whether the Seneca may have 
known the Pipe Dance of the northern plains, or whether this is the 
same as 33. “Squat Dance, For Males (26. Ne-ho-sa-den-dat)” 
appears in Morgan’s list (Morgan, 1901, vol. 1, p. 278), but Ely 
marked it obsolete. If “squat” refers to the crouching posture of the 
dancers, none of my informants has recognized it. Lloyd appended 
a list of 21 dances to recent editions of the League from a manuscript 
then in the possession of Mrs. Harriet Maxwell Converse, written by 
Nicholson Parker, Ely’s brother, but the Eagle Dance is missing (ibid., 
vol. 2, p. 287). 

Morgan methodically bound his correspondence and field notes into 
eight journal volumes which passed at his death to the University ° of 
Rochester (Gilchrist, 1936). These journals disclose that Morgan’s 


Fan Ton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 77 


expeditions to the Seneca fell in the late fall and winter; there are notes 
for at least 11 field trips, comprising in all about 18 weeks in the field, 
before he published the League in 1851. The journals contain the 
finest materials in his publications. I have established that Morgan 
missed the Bean Festival in August (Fenton, 1942); and the quality 
of his detailed notes on the War Dance which he twice observed, 
published in part in the League (Morgan, MS., Journals, vol. 2, 
pp. 36, 123-143; 1901, vol. 1, pp. 250 ff.), and his passing remarks 
on the Eagle Dance, which appear in an enumeration of dances and 
ceremonies, taken in October 1846, indicate to me that the dance was 
current but that Morgan never saw it. 


14, Ga na un da doh (gané’’oda'dg’). This dance has nearly become obso- 
lete on account of its being so difficult. It was considered the most difficult known 
among the Indians. The name signifies the shaking of a birds [sic] tail, called 
no doubt from the fact that that [sic] the dancer in the dance shook his rattle 
back and forth in the form of a birds tail spread . . . . (Morgan, MS., Journals, 
vol. 2, p. 35). 

War Dance appears in the same list, with a hope of its being per- 
formed for his benefit, but it did not occur until December 3, 1849. 

Morgan does not mention the feather fan, although his informant 
alludes to it, and Morgan confused the fan and the rattle. I cannot 
explain how he missed seeing the Eagle Society bundles with wands 
protruding from the ends hung aloft in the rafters or hanging on the 
walls in Tonawanda houses. I am convinced that the society did not 
meet during one of his brief visits, because Morgan, always the com- 
petent observer, carefully notes other private and public rituals which 
occurred. 

Morgan understood the importance of medicine societies in Iroquois 
life, if he did not describe them. Visitors who remain among the 
Indians over protracted periods are invited to attend meetings. 
Many witnesses and a few Indians are not aware that these perform- 
ances are different from ordinary dances, or that certain rites belong 
to particular societies. The Indians do not volunteer information to 
strangers. Morgan’s journals and Ely Parker’s letters make unmis- 
takable reference to the medicine societies. In 1877, in a great book 
“Ancient Society,’”? Morgan wrote of them as something already 
obsolete. 

The Senecas have now lost their Medicine Lodges which fell out in modern times; 
but they formerly existed and formed an important part of their religious system. 
To hold a Medicine Lodge was to observe their highest religious rites, and to 
practice their highest religious mysteries. They had two such organizations, 
one in each phratry, which shows still further the natural connection of the phratry 
with religious observances. Very little is known concerning these lodges or their 


ceremonies. Each was a brotherhood into which new members were admitted by 
a formal initiation. [Morgan, 1877, pp. 97-98.] 


78 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


In another place, speaking of the widespread distribution of dances 
among American Indians, he probably refers to Seneca ceremonial 
associations. 

Particular dances are special property, belonging either to a gens, or to a society 
organized for its maintenance, into which new members were from time to time 
initiated. [Morgan, 1877, p. 118.] 

Possibly Morgan’s informants were loath to admit the presence of 
orders which were at that time infra dig, because of the popular ascend- 
ancy of the “New Religion.’”’ Handsome Lake, the Seneca Prophet 
driven from the Allegany settlements, lived at Tonawanda 4 years 
before 1815, when he undertook his journey to Onondaga where he 
died on arrival. To the end, he was plagued by the jealousy of rival 
village chiefs. Tonawanda sources say that the Prophet’s revelations 
were in suspense 10 years following his death until, persuaded by the 
Tonawanda women, his grandson Johnson, Morgan’s informant, com- 
menced reciting their Prophet’s message, and Tonawanda became the 
central fire for the Handsome Lake Religion. The Prophet drew his 
precepts from the old culture, and incorporated certain doctrines from 
the Quakers (Deardorff, 1951). 

Finding that he made little headway in his teachings, he sought to destroy the 
societies and orders that conserved the older religious rites, by proclaiming a reve- 
lation from the Creator. The divine decree was a command that all the animal 
societies hold a final meeting at a certain time, throw tobacco in the ceremonial 
fires, and dissolve. [Parker, 1913 a, pp. 38 ff., 114.] 

Some of these rituals came from foreign tribes, and it is reasonable 
to assume that the sources were captured Huron, southeastern Indians, 
and the neighboring Delaware and Nanticoke, notable sorcerers who 
were then living near the Seneca in the Allegany and Ohio settlements. 

The prophet said: 

It is not right for you to have so many dances and dance songs. 

A man calls a dance in honor of some totem animal from which he desires favor 
or power. This is very wrong, for you do not know what injury it may work upon 
other people. [Parker, 1913 a, p. 39.] 

Another version enumerates four great sins which he sought to 
eliminate, and complains specifically of foreign influences. 

4. You sing tunes from other nations at your dances. These are poison. You 
may dance again and have the kettles boiled, but repent of this. [Caswell, 1892, 
p. 209.] 

A council of friendly chiefs and those who feared him held a last 
meeting; they decided to disband the societies forever, but they 
neglected to cast sacred tobacco in the fire. Cornplanter, Blacksnake, 
and other rival leaders at Cornplanter and Coldspring settlements 
asserted that the efficacy of the old orders had therefore not been 
impaired. Though persecuted, members continued the rites sub rosa, 


Fanon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 79 


until gradually tension ended and certain societies commenced appear- 
ing publicly at annual festivals. The function of compelling animal 
spirits changed gradually to curing, and the societies assimilated 
adherents of the New Religion who perpetuated them. There is no 
evidence that the old dream societies ceased at Tonawanda. Possibly 
Johnson, out of respect for his grandfather’s opposition, did not elab- 
orate on the function of what Morgan calls “‘concerts,’”’ and this had 
led to their supposed extermination. 

The year after the founding of the Bureau of American Ethnology 
in 1879, Erminnie A. Smith went among the Seneca of western New 
York. She is the first to mention the Eagle Dance. 

Private dances are held by the medicine men, in which are introduced Ka-nai- 
kwa-ai, or eagle dance ... On the death of a medicine man a special meeting is 


held by his fraternity, and during the giving of certain medicines, medicine tunes 
are chanted. (Smith, 1883, p. 116.] 


She also mentions the rite of creating Ceremonial Friends. 


Private dances are not infrequently given by individual members of the tribe 
who, having conceived a great affection for each other, publicly cement it by a 
friendship dance. [Ibid. Cf. Stone, 1838, vol. 1, p. 28.] 

Rev. William M. Beauchamp, for many years Episcopal missionary 
at Onondaga, described the ceremonies and devoted a great deal of 
energy to the historical sources. From his description I judge that the 
rite was well developed among the Onondaga at Syracuse: 

Eagle dance (striking stick dance). Two men dance side by side in precisely 
the same way. Each holds a stick, with feathers spread out on each side. They 
bend down, bending one leg under the dancer, and stretching the other out on the 
side. A cent is placed on the floor and picked up with the mouth. Some strike 
on the floor with a stick, and this gives it the name (Ga-na-gah-a). A dancer 
makes a speech and presents tobacco. [Beauchamp, 1895 a, p. 212; 1922, p. 218.] 


He also informs us that some old Onondaga tunes survive, but that 
the songs and dances are now all Seneca, having been introduced by 
Handsome Lake, and that they are composed of burden syllables. 
Were the Seneca the source of Eagle Dance? 

It is doubtful that the Mohawk had the Eagle Dance. There is 
apparently no word for it in Father Bruyas’ dictionary, which was 
compiled prior to 1700 (Beauchamp, 1895 b, pp. 217-221; Bruyas, 
1863). The nearest approximation in Cuoq’s later grammar is ‘‘Kana- 
kare—perche, baton long; petits arbres coupés pour faire des cercles”’ 
(Cuoq, 1882). The late J. N. B. Hewitt told me that the generic 
term for the ritual meant, in Mohawk, “‘to strike a skin.”” A warrior 
pledged his word on the hide of a deceased enemy (J. N. B. Hewitt, 
conversation, November 1935). ‘To strike a drum” (ga’nahgwa’’e’) 
was the nearest a Mohawk source could reach. 

Parker wrote the first consistent account of the Seneca Medicine 


80 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLu. 156 


Societies, which served as a constant guide in gathering additional 
information. Writing of the Eagle Dance among the Seneca at 
Newtown, Cattaraugus Reservation, he says: 

The ritual of the Eagle Society consists of ten songs and a dance... . Every 
member participating in the ceremony paints on each cheek a round red spot. 
No one but members may engage in its ceremonies, even though these be per- 
formed publicly. The Eagle Society’s ceremony is regarded the most sacred, in 
this respect next to the Great Feather Dance... . [Parker, 1913b, pp. 124-125.] 

All my information differs with Parker; nonmembers, as we shall 
see below, do utter Eagle Dance speeches. He-strikes-the-rushes 
says, “‘Outsiders may participate if the meeting is open to all.””’ How- 
ever sacred the ritual may be as compared with the Feather Dance, 
which is open to anyone who wishes to pledge his allegiance to the 
“old way,” participation in practice does not conform to theory which 
may have anciently restricted participation in Eagle Society meetings 
to members only. Dr. Speck’s and Alex General’s investigations at 
Six Nations Reserve bear out my contention that nonmembers do 
participate. 

Parker continues: 

It is believed that the society holds in its songs the most potent charms known. 
It is said that the dying, especially those afflicted with wasting diseases, and 
old people, have been completely restored by its ceremonies. This is because 
the Dew Eagle, to which the society is dedicated, is the reviver of wilting things. 
[And here he adds in a footnote:] The Dew Eagle refreshed the scalp of the Good 
Hunter by plucking a feather from its breast and sprinkling the scalp with the 
dew from the lake in the hollow of its back. [Parker, 1913 b, p. 124; 1923, 
p. 389; Converse and Parker, 1908, p. 152.] 8 


ORIGIN LEGENDS 


THE LEGEND OF BLOODY HAND 


Origin legends describing the adventures of a good hunter or an 
orphan boy who is befriended by mythological creatures are preva- 
lent in Iroquois folklore. The adventures of a good hunter, called 
Bloody Hand, embrace the beginnings of the Medicine Company 
of which the Eagle Dance Society is a dependent order. This legend, 
which has Onondaga and Seneca variants, describes the adventures 
of a war captain and his party in the southwest country where the 
Iroquois went to learn new things and take captives. Bloody Hand, 
killed and scalped, is discovered by the flesh-eating birds and quadru- 
peds whom he had always remembered with sacrifices of his first 
killed game. Dew Eagle participates in a council of birds and animals 

2 The legend of the Good Hunter and the Mystic Animals appears in a number of sources: Canfield, 
1902, pp. 129-135, 206-208; Beauchamp, 1901, pp. 153-159. This includes Seneca and Tuscarora versions. 
Converse and Parker, 1908, pp. 150-156. The same version is reprinted with minor phonetic corrections 


in Parker, 1923, pp. 386-393; Caswell,71892, pp.221 ff.; Curtin and Hewitt, 1918, pp. 273-276; and 8 Huron 
version appears in Barbeau, 1915, p. 333. 


Fan Ton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 81 


who concoct a medicine, taking their flesh and procuring the roots 
of herbs. After several failures, a bird retrieves the scalp from the 
smoke hole of an enemy lodge. 

It was smoky and dried and would not fit the head of the man. Then Big 
Crow (buzzard) emptied his stomach on it to clean it of smoke and make it stick 
fast and O‘sh‘ada’gea’ plucked a feather from his wing and dipped it in the pool 
of dew that rests in the hollow of his back and sprinkled the water upon it. The 


dew came down in round drops and refreshed the dry scalp as it does a withered 
leaf. [Parker, 1923, p. 389.] 


The birds sang and the rattlesnakes rattled to increase their medicine. 


Above the clouds and mists of the sky dwells a bird who is the chief of all the 
birds. His name is S‘hadahgeah. This assembly of bird and animal sorcerers 
chose the chief of the crows to notify him of all that was taking place. This is 
the reason, according to the tradition, the crow today sings the note ‘‘caw caw.” 
The eagle is another chief who is under the great bird that dwells above the 
clouds and mists of the firmament. [Curtin and Hewitt, 1918, p. 275.] 


The long legend describes the founding of the Small Dose or Little 
Water Medicine Company, its rites of renewal and celebration. Thus, 
Dew Hagle and his messenger, the Raven, are of the sacred company 
of mystic animals, but they also have a separate society of their 
own. The Eagle Dance and the Eagle Society have been reinter- 
preted from incidents elaborated in this type of legend. 

Newtown Seneca informants consider the Eagle Society a sub- 
sidiary of the Medicine Company. ‘‘Dew Eagle is the highest of 
the eagle species. His feathers are not used for the dancers’ fans 
but ordinary American eagle feathers are used. The fan stands 
for Dew Eagle.” 

Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch’s grandfather told Long-horns, my in- 
formant, that Eagle Society grew out of a pact between Dew Eagle 
and a man who was seeking meat for an ingredient in the Little 
Water Medicine. During Eagle Society meetings at Allegany they 
anciently employed a whistle (ga’’ginda’) made from the wing bone 
of an eagle to give the pitch to the singers, but now they use a cane 
or bamboo whistle as in the sessions to renew the strength of the 
Little Water Medicine, which makes a further connection between 
the two orders. 

Dew Eagle was caught by a man who purged himself for 10 days. A man 
wanted meat of Dew Eagle to complete the potion for the Little Water Medicine. 
He fasted for 10 days and purged himself. He burned sacred tobacco daily for 
10 days, imploring the bird to come down to a certain spot. Finally, on the 
tenth day two eagles came down. The man was able to converse with Dew 
Eagle. He requested a piece of his thigh meat as an ingredient for a medicine. 
Dew Eagle instructed him to make a poultice, employing the saliva which 
Dew Eagle supplied from his bill, in order to heal the wound. Dew Eagle sug- 


gested that they form a pact of friendship, and out of this pact, the Eagle Society, 
its songs, and ceremonies were formed. Thus at Newtown, after the priest has 


82 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLu. 156 


finished burning tobacco, he sings over the first song, a short song for the benefit 
of Dew Eagle, to whom the song arises on the tobacco smoke. 


THE TWO BROTHERS LEARN SONGS FROM BIRDS 


There is also the story of the Two Brothers living alone in the 
forest. The younger does the thinking and planning for both. He 
directs his older brother to shoot a turkey, and he devises the two- 
feather headdress with revolving socket and chin band. He repairs 
to the forest, learns songs from birds whom he does not shoot, and 
directs his brother to practice them. He makes a rule that people 
of his tribe should wear feathers as insignia, and he invents the war 
song. 

From the time that the youth had commenced to study the singing of the birds 
he had begun to grow wise. . . . He kept saying, ‘‘ These are songs which the people 
shall sing, and they, too, shall wear feathers on their heads.’”? The people had 
never heard anyone sing. . . . He declared to his brother the dangers connected 
with singing the songs, saying, ‘‘You must be careful about singing this song; if 
you are not, it will bring you senseless to the ground. . . . I am singing praises, for 
I have learned to sing from the birds. I give thanks as I have learned to give them 
in my hunting expeditions. I dance to my songs because I hear the birds sing, 
and I see them dance. You and I must do the same, for it will rouse a feeling of 
joy in our hearts.” [Curtin and Hewitt, 1918, pp. 277, 279, 282.] 

Although this dance is derived from birds, its character is reminis- 
cent of Feather Dance, rather than the Eagle Dance proper. 

The widespread North American Indian tale of a lost boy who is 
carried away by a giant bird, either willingly on its back or in a hollow 
log into which he has crawled, occurs in many variants as the origin 
legend for the Eagle Dance. The boy lives for a time among the 
Eagle people in the rocky crags above the clouds. He learns their 
songs and dances. Either through a strategem of beating the head 
of an eaglet on whose back he has mounted for trial flights, or at the 
end of his visit, he is returned graciously to the scene of his abduction. 


CHIPPING SPARROW’S ADVENTURE AMONG EAGLES 


Harriet Maxwell Converse recorded an exotic variant at Catta- 
raugus years ago, which in substance follows: 

Golden Eagle is the head chief of all the birds. He employs assist- 
ants to visit the earth. Bald Eagle, a subchief, who has keen sight 
and rapid flight, is assigned to the earthly mountain tops. He 
assigns the task of keeping the earth free of carrion to Hunting Vul- 
ture, but he permits them access to the clean upper spaces and the 
clear waters of earth because they have pure hearts. All earthly 
refuse is theirs. Hunting Vulture soars amid the clouds, to and fro 
ceaselessly searching for spoil, and he occasionally passes swift-flying 
Bald Eagle. 


FEnTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 83 


A young lad named Chipping-sparrow becomes lost in the woods 
during a rain and weeps bitterly. Bald Eagle discovers him, lifts 
him on his back, and deposits him near an Indian village, but he 
is not found. Hunting Vulture, in search of night prey, finds him 
nearly dead and, failing to find his home, bears him aloft in his talons 
to thesky land. There the birds are celebrating the New Year Dance. 
He learns their dances. Chipping-sparrow promises to protect their 
nests in early spring, they show him the grains which they prefer, and 
he promises to instruct his people. 

The seven dancing brothers (the Pleiades) are dancing the New 
Year Dance over the council house, when the Golden Eagle directs 
the Hunting Vulture to return him to his people.” It is winter and 
the snow is on the ground. He finds his people gathered in the coun- 
cil house feasting. He relates his journey and teaches them the new 
dances and the songs. The name Hunting Vulture is added to the 
list of clan chiefs and conferred upon him, to whom the vulture had 
been a good friend. 

Except for using the Seneca term for the Buffalo Dance, the descrip- 
tion fits the Eagle Dance, the musical score is printed without text, 
a plate illustrates a set of superb six-feather fans, and a meeting of 
the Newtown Eagle Dance Lodge is illustrated by Jesse Cornplanter, 
then a rising boy artist. 

By this legend the Iroquois know the origin of . . . the Bird Dance; which was 
brought by Jo-wiis [the founder of the Eagle Society] from the land of the sky 
birds, and is the most prominent dance of the Iroquois. It is celebrated at their 
New Year feast, and during its performance the dancers imitate the motions of a 
bird, squatting low and moving their bodies and heads as if picking the grains of 
corn which have been scattered on the floor. 

This dance reminds the people of the law of Ga-do-jih, that the Indian must 


nourish and care for the birds in the winter as well as in the summer time. [Con- 
verse and Parker, 1908, pp. 69-73.] 


Boy ABDUCTED BY DEW EAGLE 


Coldspring informants agree that the ritual songs for Eagle Dance 
originated in the adventures or from a subsequent dream of the man 
whom Dew Eagle kidnapped and kept in her nest in the rocky crags. 
However, each imformant’s version differs in detail or in method of 


elaboration. 
VERSION OF DJIDQ/"GWAS 


The late Djidg’ :gwas of the Seneca Wolf Clan (pl. 17) related the 
following tale, elaborating the plot in the form of a dialogue which 
was his characteristic style of recitation (Radin, 1915, p. 9). 

Dew Eagle picks up a little boy from his village and takes him to 


3 When the Pleiades, ‘the dancing children” (hadi’’tgwa’da-’), are on the zenith at dusk (about January 
15), it is time for the New, Year Dance. The correlation of lunar and sidereal years is thus regulated. 


84 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLL. 156 


her nest to the west in the Rocky Mountains. There she has two 
little eaglets and they play together with the boy, dancing gane’’gwi’e:’ 
with him. They sing the songs as they dance. The boy stays there 
a long time. 

The Dew Eagle finally says to him, ‘“‘Do you want to go back now?” 

And the Boy says, ‘‘Yes.” 

She flies far to the east and circles, descending slowly. As soon as 
he gets down from her back she disappears. He goes to his house, 
and his old folks say, ‘“Where have you been?” 

“T have been way to the Rocky Mountains. While I was there I 
played with two little birds. We danced all the time I was there 
and we sang songs which they call gane’’gwi’e:’.”’ 

Then the old folks say, ‘‘Who was singing?” 

And the little boy replies, ‘“The birds were singing themselves.” 

So the boy sang the songs, and the old folks learned them. 

While the boy was living with the eagles, he and the birds ate hulled- 
corn soup and fresh meat. 

His people then asked him, ‘“‘What did you eat while you were 
living among the birds?” 

“T ate fresh meat all the time,’ he replied. 

“And at night did you go to sleep?” they continued. 

“Yes, I slept pretty well.” 

“Did you keep warm?” they queried. 

“Yes, I kept warm.” 

“Who slept with you then?” they wanted to know. 

“When night came I slept together with the two little birds (shada’- 
ge’a:’), and the old mother bird in her nest.” 

So this is the way the ritual called gane’’gwi’e-’ started, and this 
is how it reached the Seneca people. 


VERSION OF CHAUNCEY WARRIOR 


Chauncey Warrior, a Cayuga of the Turtle Clan, narrated the same 
legend, but in his version Dew Eagle disproves the magic qualities of 
a hollow log which, it is believed, ghosts cannot enter (Parker, 1923, 
p. 283), by carrying him off in the log. Later, Dew Eagle appears in 
the youth’s dreams to foretell the episodes which are subsequently 
elaborated in the myth. He returns home riding on the Eagle’s back. 

The old folks say that long ago a group of young boys went out hunting in the 
fall. They went down into the southwest country in search of game. One day 
one of them became separated from the rest. As he journeyed through the forests 
carrying his rifle, he noticed that a small bird kept continually flying around his 
head as he walked. This bothered him. 

Hearing something, he looked up and saw some great black patches bearing 
down upon him from the heavens. This frightened him and he commenced 
running. The little bird led him near a hemlock tree to a fallen log which was 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 85 


hollow. The bird flew in one end of the log and out the other and then back to 
the hunter, and again. The hunter leaned his rifle against the hemlock tree and 
followed the bird into the hollow log. A great bird swooped down upon the spot 
where he had stood a moment before. 

Thinking himself safe within the hollow log, he lay quiet, but presently he experi- 
enced a sensation of being elevated, as if the log and all its contents were being 
raised aloft. Crawling forward he peered out the open end before him. He felt 
a rush of wind and saw the earth receding far below. Presently, he looked out 
again and the earth was no longer visible; he was above the clouds, which appeared 
to be moving rapidly eastward. He glanced aloft to see a great female Dew Eagle 
carrying the log in her talons. 

They traveled westward during several days and finally arrived at the Rocky 
Mountains where the Dew Eagle had her nest high on a rocky promontory. The 
nest was constructed of huge timbers like the hollow log she was carrying. She 
set it down beside the nest, which contained four little eaglets. 

The hunter stayed inside the log, hiding. 

That night he hada dream. The old mother eagle appeared to him saying that 
if he would feed her little ones in her absence, she would bring him all the game he 
could eat, and that he would always have good hunting luck in the future. 

The next morning he awoke and there in front of the log lay a freshly killed 
deer with her talon marks in its back. The hunter emerged from the log, took 
out his scalping knife and cut up the deer in little pieces, which he thrust down the 
gaping gullets of the awkward eaglets. Then he struck a fire with flint and steel 
which he carried, spitted a venison steak and roasted it for himself. This went 
on from day to day. 

Each night he crawled back inside the hollow log to sleep. 

Later he had another dream in which the old eagle appeared to him again, 
telling him that when her little ones grew up and flew away from the nest she 
would take him back to his people. In return he must promise several things: 
To sing songs which she would teach him, to teach his people the Eagle Dance, 
which is a dramatization of eagles scratching and feeding, and always to remember 
them with tobacco and a feast. He promised. 

As the days went on the hunter was growing older and the young eaglets were 
feathering and daily growing hungrier. They had commenced hopping about on 
the edge of the butte, and flying short distances between the crags. Finally one 
day, one took off and disappeared in the east, then another. By afternoon two 
were left, and by sunset they also had followed their siblings. 

The hunter was now downcast, fearing he would be left there indefinitely to 
starve. He was now a full-grown man. Finally the old mother eagle returned, 
alighted, and said, ‘‘ Now I am taking you back where I found you. Climb on my 
back and we shall go home.” 

The hunter climbed on her back and she flew eastward into the gathering 
night. He looked below and he could now discern the place where he had once 
stood on the earth. At last she alighted, saying, ‘‘Now you have got back, 
Remember me with the ceremony which I taught you and you will always have 
good luck.” 

The hunter looked about. The brush had grown up where the log had lain. 
The hemlock tree had enlarged and grown around the place where the muzzle 
of his musket still rested. Raising the musket with some difficulty, he discovered 
that the barrel left a smooth worn mark on the tree. 

Now he went home and found his village with some difficulty. His people 
finally recognized him as the youth who had gone off hunting one fall and got lost 


86 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


in the forests. He had since grown to manhood. He gathered them about him 
and related his adventures, and he taught them the songs and the dance. 

Later the man had a dream and the Dew Eagle revealed the necessity for his 
sponsoring these songs. In the future all those who became ill and dreamed of 
the birds would be the ones the Eagle had accepted for his society. By putting up 
the ritual they would be cured. That is how the Eagle Dance commenced. 


VERSION OF SNORER 


Snorer of the Hawk Clan, at first reluctant to discuss the origin of 
the Eagle Dance, said, “It (gane’’gwa’e’’) is Eagle Dance for Dew 
Eagle (shada’ge’a’’). I never heard about that. There is no use any 
longer remembering those things.” 

Snorer was also familiar with the myth of Boy carried away by 
Eagle, but declared that the bird did not carry the boy away in a 
hollow log. Boy rode willingly on the bird’s back. However, Snorer 
does not consider this tale an origin legend for Eagle Dance. 

“There was a settlement of Senecas and they lost a boy. He 
disappeared. When he finally returned afterward he narrated his 
story,’ which Snorer related somewhat sketchily, as follows: 


The boy was playing on the sand along the margin of a river. A great bird 
came down and spoke to him, ‘‘ Now boy, you jump on my back and we will have 
fun. I willcarry you about.” After several invitations the boy accepted. They 
flew away up next to the sky where the Eagles frequent. He stayed there and 
learned everything that they do. He learned that the Eagle has great power. 
The various tribes of Eagles told him all they know. They told him that Indians 
should keep up their religion. They told him that the people on earth should 
thank our Creator at Strawberry time, and at the other stated festivals, as we 
did in the olden times. 

After a while the big bird says, ‘‘It is time to go home. Climb on my back,” 
and the bird flew down to where he had taken him. The boy’s parents were 
greatly surprised to see him return. 


(Obviously, Snorer is omitting the best literary figures. Whether 
he is bored, unwell, or withholding information, I am not sure, but 
I always found him a difficult informant.) 

The following fragment that War Dance and Feather Dance were 
learned by some young boys suggests the legend of the Two Brothers, 
already cited from Curtin and Hewitt. 


War Dance (wasd’se’’) came from the Eagle! Some young boys learned the 
War Dance and all its songs. Finally they learn Feather Dance. This too came 
from the sky-world. 

Gane’’gwi’e’’—Eagle Dance—came later from shada’ge’’a’’, the Cloud-dweller 
or Dew Eagle. It was Eagle who carried the boy off on his back. 

The Seneca learned Eagle Dance from a man, in reality an Eagle, who visited 
among them and taught the dance to the Indians. That is why the Seneca have 
such power, because they and the Eagles talked among themselves and the Seneca 
learned how to do it from them. The Seneca talked with the Eagle just as you 
and I sit here and discuss these things. 

Long ago they used to have trouble and the Seneca were continually fighting. 


Fanon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 87 


There was a man whom they saw who came among them and he was one of the 
great eagles that we call Cloud-dwellers. 

The birds had the power to transform themselves to human beings. One could 
not tell whether he was man or bird. The Cloud-dwellers taught men to dance 
gane’’gwa’e-’’ on earth; it is the dance of the Cloud-dwellers. That is where the 
Seneca got it. They talked with this one who was leader of the great birds. He 
spoke to the Seneca. That is why the Seneca are great fighters, because those 
birds are powerful. Long ago there was a League of the Iroquois. They had 
a fight among the other tribes. The Iroquois were more powerful because they 
had their power from these great birds. 


A TONAWANDA VARIANT, BY ERNEST SMITH 


Older Tonawanda informants (and I think that they were honest) 
said that they did not know origin legends for Eagle Dance. Quite 
possibly they know the bird abductor legend and have never associ- 
ated it with the genesis of the ritual. It came to me from a younger 
informant then in his twenties, Ernest Smith of the Heron Clan, a tal- 
ented artist. Like a variant current among the Shawnee, Boy re- 
turns to earth via the strategem of beating the head of an eaglet on 
which he has mounted for a trial flight. Ernest said, ‘‘Mother used 
to tell a story of a little boy who was carried up. My memory is 
shady, but I do not think he was pursued into a hollow log. I 
remember this:” 

A boy became lost in the woods. He was sleepy and he crawled into a hollow 
log to sleep. Dew Eagle picked up the log and carried it aloft to the crags where 
it nests. The boy awoke and peered out of the log and saw the earth receding 
far below. 

Dew Eagle used the log for her nest. The boy would crawl out and play with 
the eaglets while the great bird was out hunting. I have forgotten the details. 

The eaglets grew up. One grew big enough for him to mount on its back. It 
flew out and returned. It was so strong that he had to have a club to hit it on 
the head to weaken it. He had something for a club. As the bird flew higher, 
he would strike it. It fell toward earth. As it recovered, it flew higher. Now 
and again he whacked it. It would fall. 

These birds were supposed to roam above the clouds and never come down 
toward the earth. The boy returned to earth by beating the young eagle on the 
head, and he related his adventure among the birds who dwell above the clouds 
amid high crags in the heavens, how among them he learned the Eagle Dance. 


Ernest was never threatened by his mother that the bird might 
carry him off if he misbehaved. However, Hanover Spring, Beaver 
Clan, remembers being threatened as a child against going out after 
dark or beyond the clearing lest ‘it’? carry him away. The old 
people did not explain what “it”? might be. 


A HISTORIC RECORD 


There is some historical basis for anxiety lest Eagles carry off lone 
children. Jerome Lalemant, writing of the French and Indian com- 
munities along the St. Lawrence, describes the near abduction of a 


88 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ Buu. 156 


boy near Quebec in 1647. The eagle swooped down on a little boy 
nine years old, placing one foot on his shoulder and seizing the oppo- 
site ear. The father finally decapitated it with a sickle. ‘The Sav- 
ages say that Eagles very often swoop down on men; that they some- 
times carry off Beavers, and Sturgeon heavier than sheep” (Lalemant, 
Relation of 1647-48 in Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 33, pp. 45-47). 

William Finley, the ornithologist, declares that the majority of 
such cases prove false on investigation and avers that he has robbed 
the nests of over one hundred golden eagles without once being 
attacked (Pearson, T. Gilbert, 1936, vol. 2, pp. 82-84). Such re- 
ports, nevertheless, appear repeatedly in the public press. In 1937, 
for example, an eagle with a wing spread of nearly seven feet is re- 
ported to have fastened its talons in the body of a 13-year-old Negro 
girl who was picking cotton on a farm north of Austin, Tex., and at- 
tempted to carry her off. The bird continued attacking her until 
finally dispatched with a gun (The New York Times, October 24, 
1937). Responsible ornithologists dismiss such reports and the old 
tales of eagles carrying off young children as “pure fabrication by 
sensational reporters’ (Bent, 1937, p. 311). 


GRAND RIVER VARIANTS, BY F. W. WAUGH 


Among the five tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy, innovations 
that occurred within a member nation spread rapidly. Dialect- 
ical differences have never prevented dissemination of folk tales, be- 
cause, even where the languages are not always mutually intelli- 
gible, many persons, as in the case of the Iroquois, speak or compre- 
hend several dialects. Young men and very old men visit from vil- 
lage to village. We are not surprised, therefore, at finding the bird 
abductor myth as the origin legend for the Eagle Dance among the 
Onondaga below Syracuse, and among the Cayuga and Onondaga at 
Grand River Reserve. The same theme prevails, although details 
and method of elaboration, owing partly to individual literary pecu- 
liarities, vary as much among Seneca informants as they differ between 
Seneca and Cayuga. 

F. W. Waugh obtained the following tale at Grand River, in 1915, 
from David Jack (Cayuga); except for the Onondaga-Cayuga term 
(ha’’guks) for Dew Eagle, it might be a Seneca legend. Again, the 
theme is of a hunter carried away by Ha’’guks, with whom he lived 
fora time. The man is adopted by an animal foster parent. We find 
the thought, common is such situations, that food sharing pleases 
mythologic beings, and celebrating their ceremonies is a method of 
insuring their favor. Eagle Dance (gane’gwa’’e’) (Cayuga) must be 
held by a member or else he will be killed by ha’’guks. The story is 
offered as an explanation of the origin of the Eagle Dance Society. 


FRNT0n] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 89 


The Hunter and the Ha’ guks 


A man (once) used to go hunting alone. Some of the older people had told him 
not to go toward the west, so he said to himself, ‘‘I wonder why this is. I think 
I shall go to see.” 

He went a long distance and found no game; so he turned about and was a 
little more than halfway back when he heard a rattling against the tallest trees, 
as if something were following. He turned immediately and saw a large creature 
swoop down among the tops. He ran as quickly as he could and crept into a 
hollow log, taking with him his knife and tomahawk. The creature, which was a 
ha’’guks, now picked up the log and carried it away home. It was a large pine log, 
and the ha’’guks carried it to its nest, a good many miles away. 

It usually went away two or three times a day and each time brought back a 
whole deer to divide among its six young ones. 

The man took a look around and could see nothing but rocks which were so 
high that he couldn’t see to the bottom. There was no opportunity to get away 
so he decided to accept his fate and crawled into the nest with the young ones. 
When the old bird came back again with deer, she gave the man a share, too. 

The young ones were growing all the time and were always wrestling and playing 
with one another. 

When the old bird was away, the man would chop off some of the log to cook 
the meat which had been given to him. 

When the ha’’guks next brought a deer, it gave the man a nice piece off the hind 
quarter, upon which he took his ax, chopped a portion up, and gave each of the 
young ones another share, keeping only a small piece for himself. The old bird was 
pleased at this. 

Presently the young birds were nearly fledged and were making short flights and 
uttering their calls. One day, when they were all flying about, they came back 
for their share of the deer, and the man again used his ax to cut up the portions. 

One day he said to one of the young birds, ‘‘I want you to take me home again,” 
The bird looked at him. 

Next morning early, when it was time to eat, the young ones brought some deer, 
too. The old one then went away. A young bird came close to the man who 
quickly gathered up his belongings, sprang on its back, and clasped it around the 
neck. It then took him back to the very place from which he had been taken, 
just one day and a night being consumed in the journey. 

He went to where his shanty had been and where he had left a quantity of meat, 
but everything was gone. He thought that his people had probably taken it, 
supposing that he had been killed. 

Next day he set out for home and arrived there just as his relatives were about 
to hold a feast for him, as they thought he was dead. 


Waugh’s informant adds: 


Some people “belong to”’ or are under the protection of various sorts of animals. 
In this way a number of societies have originated, the members having joined 
when sick. 

One society of the kind is called Gane’gwa’’e’, or Eagle Dance. A member of 
this will surely die if he doesn’t hold the ceremony at appropriate intervals, as the 
eagle (ha’’guks) is considered to be a very powerful utgg’”’ (wizzard or witch). 
(Waugh, MS. vol. 1, p. 37.] 


In 1915 Waugh also obtained from the same informant a legend of 
The Bad Boy and the Giant Crow. The theme is of a bad boy who 


90 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


is carried away by a giant crow (gahgago’wa), who replaces ha’’guks 
in the role of Roc, and becomes the boy’s animal foster parent. A 
moral is pointed against the prevalent Iroquois custom of parents 
frightening their children by telling them that the crow or other ani- 
mals will hear them and will take them away when they are lazy or 
disobedient. 

The Bad Boy and the Giant Crow 


A man, his wife, and two children were (once) hunting in the bush. There was 
one boy who was large enough to help, but wouldn’t. He was a very bad boy 
and wanted everything his own way. The parents scolded him and warned him 
that some sort of animal would take him away. The boy said he didn’t care, 
which alarmed the parents, as the animals would hear what he said and would 
kill him. 

Every time he got a chance he would go to sleep somewhere. One day he was 
walking along a little path when he saw a big log and went and laid down on the 
top of it to sleep. He woke after a while and found that a great crow had picked 
him up and was carrying him to its nest. 

His mother called him, but he did not answer, of course, because he had been 
carried far away. 

The boy found that there were three little crows in the nest. The old one left 
the boy there and went away; so the boy crawled in with the three little ones. He 
had in his shirt some mushrooms that he had been gathering, and he put one in 
each of the open mouths, so that they were shut when the old crow came back. 
The latter brought back some deer fawn, which she gave to the young ones, the boy 
gladly taking some of it, too. 

After a while the old one went away and brought back some corn. There 
were four cobs, one for each of them, including the boy. 

The young ones grew very fast, and, while the old one was away, the boy would 
take one of them and play with it and would try to get it to walk. He was always 
playing with them in this way. 

After a while he began to play at riding on their backs, the young ones doing 
the same with each other. When the old one returned, the young ones called out 
and jumped on her back. The boy called like the little crows, too. 

Very soon one of the nestlings could fly just like the old one. The boy got on 
its back and it flew around and came back. After a while the old one returned. 
The boy got on her back and she flew away with him until they arrived at the 
log where he had gone to sleep. He got off there and called like a crow. The 
old one flew off expecting him to follow her as the young ones did; but he stayed 
behind and ran and hid in a hollow pine. The old crow came back to look for 
him and kept calling, but he did not answer. When she flew away he ran home. 

After this the old folks quit telling their children that the crow or other animals 
would hear them and take them away when they were lazy or bad. [Waugh, 
MS., vol. 2, p. 7.] 


VERSION OF CHIEF LOGAN 


The guardian spirit of the Eagle Society among the Canadian 
Onondaga, as well as the Cayuga, is ha’’guks (‘‘cannibal’’), a giant 
bird. Chief Logan, in recording the Eagle Dance for me in 1941, 
related a variant of the Roc legend in which the Great Crow (Gah’- 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 91 


gago'na) is the main character, and not ha’’guks, so Chief Logan did 
not associate the tale with the origin of the Eagle Society. 


Gahgago:na Abducts a Hunter 


Gahgago-na carried away a young hunter. He swooped down and picked him 
up and took him so high in the air that he could no longer see the earth. They 
ascended through the clouds to where there is a great hole in the sky through 
which they passed. Beyond the sky is another world with woods, ete. At last 
it reached its nest and released hunter. Nest is in bush (forest). Hunter dis- 
covers little birds in nest. 

The old bird went away daily in the morning to forage. Toward night old 
bird returned bearing whole carcass of freshly killed deer. Old bird laid burden 
down beside nest. Then young man took his knife, which was of sharp stone, 
and flayed and gutted the deer and cut up the meat, saving a piece for himself, 
distributed few pieces to each of the young ones. Repeated daily. 

Daily he noticed that the young ones were growing. They were becoming 
accustomed to him. They were no longer afraid of him. As they grew bigger 
they commenced to fly a little. Then he was worrying how he would ever get 
back. One day he decided in his mind how he would do it—he would jump on the 
back of one of the young birds and make it carry him back to his village. 

There is a hole in the floor of the sky world. There the young lad drove one 
of the young birds. At the edge he shoved the young bird into the hole and 
jumped on its back and grabbed its neck with hisarms. When they were through 
the hole, the bird opened its wings and descended slowly—down, down—at first 
they could see nothing. Presently they could see just a black streak at the bot- 
tom. He recognized the bush (forest). Slowly they descended. Soon he 
could discern the bush. The bird alighted in the top of a big tree where they got 
hung up in the branches. Then the man released the bird and descended from 
limb to trunk and came down to the ground. Then, having reached the ground, 
he knew where he was. He returned to his village and told the people his adven- 
ture. As far as they knew he had been lost. He related his experience and told 
them that there is another world above the clouds. 


SACRIFICES AND EAGLE TRAPPING 


There is a close relationship between the old Seneca custom of 
sacrificing the first-killed deer to the meat-eating birds of prey and 
the widespread American Indian technique of luring down birds to 
shoot them or take them by pit trapping. We have already seen how 
folklore lauds the virtues of the good hunter who always remembered 
to leave meat for the birds and animals. In subsequent legends, 
youths purified themselves and prayed with tobacco, imploring the 
Dew Eagle to descend and donate meat for a sacred tribal medicine. 
In other accounts individuals lured down the rare birds for feathers, 
which they believed to have great power, because it is said the birds 
are rarely seen beneath the clouds. Gradually, these accounts pass 
from myth to legend to historical tradition of actual eagle trapping 
to procure feathers for a peace embassy to the Cherokee about 1770. 

982306—53——7 


92 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


Such traditions are our only source for the customs associated with 
eagle trapping, because there are no longer individuals living who 
have practiced the art; but my informants cite the traditions both 
in rationalizing the symbolism involved in the dance itself and in 
explanation of how eagle feathers were anciently obtained. These 
individual traditions are woven through the warp of a tribal pattern 
imposed by the mythology itself, which posits a more or less hier- 
archical classification of the eagle species in the minds of the Iroquois 
who exalt them in direct proportion to altitude above the earth. The 
touchstone of Iroquois religion is this whole concept of augmented 
reverence progressing through the various stations of the pantheon, 
from the earth upward to the sky world, as opposed to fear and dread 
of malefic beings on and beneath the earth (Fenton, 1936 b, 14-18; 
Hewitt, 1928). 


SACRIFICE OF THE FIRST KILL 


The legends attached to several Seneca medicine societies describe 
adventures incurred on the fall hunt. According to Wood-eater, it 
was customary to revere all institutions associated by experience 
with successful hunting. One must sacrifice the first kill. The Eagle 
Dance derived from the experience of one legendary hunter whose 
observations are cited. 


Hunters anciently sacrificed their first kill to the meat eaters. A man went up 
into the woods hunting and killed a deer. He took it to a high hill, and having 
cleared away the brush from a small area, he laid the deer down. He built 
a little fire and made a tobacco offering, saying the deer belonged to the Dew 
Eagle and that he was offering it to him. Then he hid in the brush. 

Presently a huge bird came spiralling downward toward the place whence the 
smoke had arisen. Then another. More followed until there were many. 

They warily approached the carcass to eat the meat, clutching a piece of meat, 
and then retreating at a distance to eat it. 

Now this hunter was frightened, for the old folks say that these birds are about 
the stature of a man when they are on the ground. It seemed to him that they 
were dancing as they fed about the deer. Apparently they were eating peaceably 
and their sallies and retreats were but parts of the dance they performed. Four 
or five opposed each other. 


(How similar to the arrangement of the dancers in the ritual!) 


People used to make these sacrifices continually. Then they always had good 
luck hunting. 
The songs came to him later in a dream. 


For all his erudition Wood-eater seemed quite unfamiliar with any 
form of eagle trapping. He did not voluntarily connect the observa- 
tions of his legendary hunter with an effort to procure eagle feathers. 
He thought birds were lured down and shot. 


Fanton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 93 


EAGLE SHOOTING 


Hagle trapping likely came late among the Iroquois. Shooting at 
eagles occurs both in folklore and in the historical sources. For 
instance, Bressani’s Relation of April 27, 1653, describes a memorable 
canoe upset en route from Three Rivers to the Huron country, when 
a Huron shot at an eagle. Evidently, the Huron revered the eagle. 

The first evening, the Huron who was guiding our canoe, wishing to shoot at 
an Eagle, was the occasion of our wreck in the lake named for St. Peter; ... 
The Hurons took this accident for a bad omen, and counseled me to return 
whence we had started as we were not yet more than 8 or 10 miles distant thence. 
[Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 39, p. 57.] 

Seneca folklore is replete with incidents of shooting at eagles with 
bow and arrows. Among other ordeals at puberty, a youth named 
“Listener” heeds his uncle’s counsel, and proves his magic power and 
supremacy over sorcerers by successfully shooting an eagle from the 
top of a large hickory tree, thereby winning the sorcerer’s daughter in 
marriage (Curtin and Hewitt, 1918, pp. 139-143). In another variant 
Hat‘honda’s shot the eagle by aiming through the smoke hole (ibid., 
p. 793). In a third episode the wily nephew outwits the great eagle 
atop a tall tree in a clearing where it guards the sacred chestnuts 
belonging to the seven sisters, who are great sorcerers. Transforming 
into a mole, nephew emerges beneath the tree, scatters venison over 
the ground, and stuffs the sacred chestnuts into a bag while the eagle 
stuffs himself. In revenge, the seven sisters beat the eagle (ibid., 
pp. 149-150). Doonongaes wins the daughter of a chief by shooting 
through the smoke hole and felling the black eagle perched on the 
top of a pole which reaches to the clouds (ibid., pp. 318, 405). Hewitt 
says that shooting at an eagle is a common incident in other stories, 
and that such poles were frequently set up on holidays and during fes- 
tivals (ibid., pp. 801, 749, 405). One adventurous youth brings down a 
hen harrier hawk and wins the chief’s daughter in marriage (ibid., p. 
569). All these legends describe an avuncular relationship between a 
youth at puberty who derives great power from heeding the instruc- 
tions of his mother’s brother. In the legend of Roots and his uncle The- 
planter, the youth fulfills his evil mother-in-law’s dream request by 
shooting s‘hadahgeah (sic) who is perched on a cloud, and gets home 
before the door flap, which his wife has conspired to keep in motion 
with an invisible hair line, ceases swinging. The old witch begs one 
of the bird’s wings for a fan, but he throws the bird in the fire to singe 
off the feathers, dismembers it, and boils the pieces in a kettle. He 
shouts an invitation to all her people, the whirlwinds, and they devour 
what proves to be her husband’s body (ibid., pp. 394-395). 

The Cayuga and Onondaga share a similar cycle of tales. In the 
adventures of sodie’sgQ, a variety of suitors’ tests are passed success- 


94 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY I BULL. 156 


fully by the gifted companions. They enlist a fellow who with an 
arrow shoots down a black sky-eagle (ha’’guks) which is beyond sight 
(Waugh, Ms., vol. 7, p. 42). Again wings are used for sweeping 
(Waugh, Ms., vol. 10, p. 38). 

The Sky or Dew Eagle is sometimes described as killing dangerous 
serpents. Waugh obtained the following tale, supposedly a historical 
tradition, from John Echo (Onondaga) at Grand River Reserve. A 
sky-eagle (ha’’guks) is shot and a dangerous serpent,which it was 
carrying, is liberated. 


The Slaying of Sky-Eagle and Serpent’s Escape 


A mythical bird resembling a very large eagle is said to live away up somewhere 
in the sky and seldom to come down into sight. 

A very long time ago some Cayugas were holding a feast and making the cus- 
tomary division of the corn soup and other food. Itwas a bright day, but it began 
presently to get cloudy. One of those present looked up and saw something de- 
scending. He told the others and they looked too. The object kept coming 
closer and, when it got near, they saw that it was a ha’’guks with an immense 
snake in its claws. Some ran quickly for their rifles and, when the ha’’guks got 
near enough, they shot and killed both the bird and snake. They dropped to 
the ground, but the people all kept back, as the snake was the kind which causes 
vomiting of blood. 

Some white people, having heard about this, came and offered the Cayugas 
quite a bit for the bird, and it was finally sold to them. 

Next morning the snake had disappeared, no one knew where, and left no 
track. [Waugh, Ms., Notebook, “General,” 1914.] 


Shooting eagles then is the only method recorded of obtaining eagle 
feathers among the Cayuga. Dr. Frank G. Speck had the following 
account from Jerry Aaron at Sour Springs Longhouse, Grand River 
Reserve, Ontario. 


The story of how eagle feathers were obtained in olden times describes a most 
particular process. The eagle hunter would smoke Indian tobacco and pray. 
Then he carries meat to the tallest dead tree in the district where he builds himself 
a hiding place about a hundred feet distant, within range of his weapon. He 
hangs the meat on a branch within sure range. Concealing himself he begins to 
call the eagle by whistling, pausing between calls. At last the eagle senses meat 
and lights on the highest branch of the tree, cautiously looking around for more 
than an hour. Then he drops to a lower branch and does the same until, finally 
reaching the meat, begins to eat, looking about for danger between bites. Some- 
times the hunter would be a whole day in his blind getting the bird within range. 

When the bird fell, the body was not touched until more than twenty-four 
hours had passed, because it was infested with dangerous “‘little bugs’’ which would 
cause the death of anyone should they get on his body. After this the feathers 
could be taken [Speck, Ms., Cayuga Field Notes, 1933; 1949, pp. 112-113]. 


Perhaps the best account of eagle baiting from the Canadian Iro- 
quois is a manuscript in the handwriting of Hewitt in the Bureau 
of American Ethnology archive. From the handwriting and paper 


Fanton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 95 


I judge it was collected in 1889 on Six Nations Reserve from an 
Onondaga. Note the association of bird lice and disease. 


The Method of Capturing the Mythic Akiiks 


This gigantic bird in the majority of cases is described as being white, but in one 
instance a blue species is mentioned. The tail feathers of this bird were endowed 
with life, such a feature was thought to be a mark of the great craft and subtlety 
of this majestic bird, king of all others, and dwelling in the unfathomed depths of 
theempyrean. The parasites on its body, the ka’-né-héii’-twa‘t, were preserved 
as charms and used as “medicine.” 

The method of capturing this bird is said to be as follows: A yearling buck 
deer called Tyofi-ofi-wi’-e-t%’ was killed and cut up into very small pieces and 
spread out on soft maple bark upturned, in the place where this bird had been 
last seen. Then the hunter would secrete himself nearby to await the coming of 
Akiks. Its habitat was in a vast mountain whose top was said to be lost in the 
clouds. At the base of this mountain the bait was spread. The great bird would 
gradually approach by alighting very far away and looking about for enemies 
very rigorously, and then by a short flight nearer and by a more rigid scouting 
of the surroundings; after a half dozen of such approaches, it would alight beside 
the meat and gorge himself so full that he could not fly to make his escape and so 
fall an easy prey to the wily hunter. Their plumes were almost invaluable 
and considered of great efficacy in a war dress. 


EAGLE BAITING 


Two seasons of diligent inquiry at Coldspring uncovered nothing 
concerning eagle trapping. My informants seemed unfamiliar with 
the practice. Even Yankee Spring (pl. 18) and Twenty-kettles at 
Tonawanda had nothing to offer. Yankee, who was very hazy as to 
how eagles were caught, in his peculiarly legalistic style explained 
how eagles might be procured. 


In receiving the great mutual law the Iroquois accepted it as the Creator handed 
itdown. He ordained that whenever they wanted anything, they should make a 
burnt tobacco offering and make their request through it to him. In this way 
they would never suffer any hardships whatever. Thus, by fiat of this contract, 
this was arranged so that his people would never be really in want, because they 
have tobacco. Moreover, he decreed that they must be in earnest when they 
make requests. ‘Thus this great mutual law covers the past, present, and future. 

For example, they might request via the tobacco, that he permit them to catch 
an eagle and lo, they do it as easily as a little child reaches and grabs a thistle 
from the air. This was because then the people had faith and, having it, nothing 
was impossible. Now these things are impossible. 

I do not think my people ever had the pit trap. The only way I know of eagles 
being procured was by the bow and arrow. 


He-is-coming remembers that Ike Seneca, an old man at Catta- 
raugus, told how they used to get eagles along the bluffs of Catta- 
raugus Creek from Versailles east toward Gowanda. 

Possibly eagles were also trapped on the bluffs of the Genesee 
River below Portageville, and along the Niagara gorge. 

Awl-breaker, a subchief of the Wolf Clan at Tonawanda, once a 


96 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Buun. 156 


medicine-bundle holder for the Little Water Medicine Company, had 
belonged to the Eagle Society since childhood; he was not sure whether 
his people had practiced pit trapping of eagles, although he considered 
it reasonable. He knew that the Dew Eagles had been brought to 
earth to obtain meat for medicine and to procure feathers for fans. 
Purity was essential. 


A real good man would get the feathers. Not a drunkard. So many days 
he would use medicine, purging himself and rendering himself odorless, and he 
would stay alone fasting. He would cleanse himself of all smell inside and out. 
After that, he got this eagle. Now today no one can get it. 


Awl-breaker said only good men who, like the originator of the 
Medicine Company, always remembered the meat eaters when he 
first killed a deer in the fall, could lure down eagles. He implied that 
there are no longer any pure men, undefiled by liquor and other 
transgressions. 

It was Falling-day, sachem chief of the Snipe Clan at Tonawanda, 
who finally, in April 19385, rewarded my search for an informant who 
knows of eagle catching. I had previously concluded that a Seneca 
tradition of pit trapping eagles to make calumet fans which were 
carried by a Seneca peace embassy to the Cherokee, which Curtin 
recorded 50 years ago at Cattaraugus and Mooney published, was the 
single record of an infrequent practice in the Northeast (Mooney, 
1900, pp. 367, 492; Curtin and Hewitt, 1918, pp. 428-432). However, 
when I went back to Coldspring in 1937, fortified with Tonawanda 
learning, I discovered that Snorer, the old hold-out, knew all about 
eagle hunting; I had never found him previously in the mood to 
discuss the subject. 


EAGLE CatTcHING, BY FaLiine-pay, SNIPE CLan, TONAWANDA 


The old people told me that their old people used to skin an animal like a deer. 
The hunter would expose the carcass, and burning tobacco, he would summon all 
the Meat-eaters to come and partake of the feast. Then the hunter would hide 
in the brush or under a blind of brush and lie still waiting. 

First the little fellows would come. They would be the crows, then the ravens, 
and the various hawks. They would eat, but the hunter would ignore them, 
casting his eyes upward expectantly awaiting the bird of his quest. After a while 
the little fellows would exhibit signs of uneasiness. They would be frightened 
and suddenly they would leave in a hurry reluctantly. He kept still, knowing 
that the big bird was coming. That is why the little birds are afraid. 

After a while the Eagle (do’nyonda:’) would come down, and after him the 
greatest of all the birds who dwell in the vapors (shada’ge’-a:’). He would 
remain quiet. At first the great bird would be wary; he does not eat right away. 
He would merely sit there, looking about. At last the bird would take a bit. 

The trappers used to know how long to wait. They knew that when the birds 
became heavy from overeating, they could not rise quickly. When the great 
eagle became too full to fly, the trapper would jump out and chase him. The old 
folks used to tell it that way. 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 97 


These were the feathers that they used in making fans for the Striking-a-pole 
(gane’’gwi’e-’) or Eagle Dance. 


The accompanying water color (pl. 1, frontispiece) by Ernest Smith 
of the Heron Clan at Tonawanda illustrates a legend describing an 
ancient method of obtaining Dew Eagle feathers, which his mother 
used to relate to him when he was a small boy. It explains a 
method of obtaining feathers and gives a derivation for the imitative 
dance. 


We were small children living with our parents on the Tonawanda Reservation. 
I used to ask Mother to tell us old stories as we sat about the fireside winter nights. 
This was before we went to the city of Buffalo to live. She used to tell of ghosts 
and we believed it. After we lived in Buffalo, she did not tell these things, and as 
I grew up I ceased believing. Now I wish I had listened. 

Mother used to tell thislegend. I don’t know where she got it, but it belonged 
to the ancient stock of legends among the Tonawanda Senecas. 


Dew Hacue DANCES ON THE DieER, BY ERNEST SuituH, Heron Cian, TONAWANDA 


Feathers from the Dew Eagle were quite rare. They brought good luck. 
They did this to obtain feathers. A man went into the woods and shot a deer. 
He laid it out in an open place where the Dew Eagle could see it, because he 
wanted feathers. 

The Dew Eagle was wheeling in flight high near the clouds. This man laid the 
deer out there for bait and hid behind a clump of bushes. The great eagle circled 
around, Finally the eagle flew down and landed at a distance from the deer, but 
he was wary. It flew up. 

Then the eagle landed on the deer, and the hunter commenced singing 
gane’’gwi’e-’. [There is no tobacco invocation mentioned. The hunter simply 
hid behind the clump of bushes and sang gane’’gwi’e:’.] The eagle commenced to 
dance on the deer. He continued singing and it kept on dancing. It was so 
engrossed in its dancing that he approached singing and took the feathers from its 
tail. He took one feather and a little dew from the hollow in its back. He de- 
rived the medicine from it, and he learned the Eagle Dance. 

The old people claim that they are white birds. The dew was always on its 
back. The Dew Eagle roams the crags above the clouds, hence his name—Cloud- 
dweller (shada’ge’-a-’). 

He sang this song, which he may have invented at the time, and after that they 
kept it up. From that time on, these songs were associated with gane’’gwi’e-’, 
the Eagle Dance. 


Ernest remembers having heard of a second method which suggests 
the more orthodox pit-trapping method of the Plains Indians. In 
insisting that Seneca did not flay the bait, he confirms the Plains 
method, but disputes other Seneca informants. 


Some stories tell that the hunter laid the deer for bait on a brush pile. The man 
hid beneath the pile. He sang songs and the bird danced on the deer. Then he 
grabbed the bird’s legs as it danced and he pulled out the feather. Mother used 
to tell that. 

No, they did not flay the deer. The Dew Eagle is wary. It would be sus- 
picious of flayed meat. The bird was always suspicious. It flew around for a 
while before it finally landed on the deer. It took patience. 


98 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLt. 156 


Hair-burned-off is principal sachem of the Snipe Clan at Tonawanda. 
The individual who bears this hereditary title shares the responsibility 
of tending the western door of the Confederacy with a correspondent 
of the Wolf Clan in the other moiety. He is guardian for the Tusca- 
roras, ‘‘keeping them under his wing,’”’ and presents the pleas of all 
western ambassadors at Onondaga. His rather considerable duties 
demand deep study with custodians of the tribal lore. The present 
incumbent, like so many of his Iroquois brethren, carried competitive 
athletics up to middle age, and only demonstrated a singular erudition 
and oratory after he had been appointed to office. The role of speaker 
belongs to a chief; his apprenticeship is a lifetime of patient unanxious 
listening and is supposed to exemplify good behavior. The present 
sachem is principal speaker at Tonawanda Longhouse, and his knowl- 
edge surpasses that of many of his older contemporaries. Thanks to 
such individuals, who have questioned the old men, Iroquois culture 
has lived several generations beyond its active functioning, at least, 
in the minds of a few individuals. 

Hair-burned-off describes the same method of obtaining eagle 
feathers which I had from his cousin Falling-Day, which they probably 
heard from the same source, a mutual grandfather, but Hair-burned- 
off makes the old tradition explain the symbolisms involved in the 
imitative Eagle Dance which has survived eagle hunting. Again, we 
hear that eagles could only be attracted by uncontaminated persons. 


Ostainine Eacie FratruHers, By HAIR-BURNED-OFF, SNIPE CLAN, TONAWANDA 


The Eagles are tame now and so are the deer. Any day now we can see a deer 
running by. They used to be harder to get. My grandfather, Alex Snyder, used 
to say that deer and Eagle were very hard to attract. 

They used to kill a deer or a bear or some other animal, having flayed it, they 
used this tobacco. They sent their words to shada’ge’-a:’ (cloud dweller) or 
Eagle (do’nyonda’). They sent their words up on the tobacco smoke to tell him 
there is a big feast here on the ground, and they invited them to come down and 
eat the meat. 

So the speaker would hide himself a little way away and he kept looking up 
expecting. When he sees something dark descending he thinks it must be the 
Eagle coming nearer to the ground. After a while he notices that it is a big bird. 
After much circling, it alights in the top of anearby tree. It perches there looking 
around. It is wary. 

The man watches it. Finally it alights on the ground and looks first one way 
and then the other way to see if anyone is about. Then the bird approaches the 
meat slowly, hopping, still looking from side to side. 

[He asked me not to include these explanatory elements in the narrative.] 
That is why in dancing the Eagle Dance, at first they hop looking from side to side, 
because the Eagle is shy and looks around as he approaches the meat. You under- 
stand, when he bends over to eat, he can no longer see. 

When the Eagle is near the meat he dances, turning from side to side to see 
whether anyone lurks around. When he fails to discover anyone, he stoops down 
and takes a chunk of meat. Now he looks around and eats the meat at the same 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 99 


time hopping, turning from side to side. When he fails to see anyone, he stoops 
over again and takes another chunk, 

Halfway in the Eagle Song, the dancer stoops and eats fast—he picks things off the 
floor. In Canada I have seen meat on the floor for the dancers ‘‘to stoop and bite.”’ 

This time the bird stoops a long time and eats fast. Then he looks around 
again. Here the dancer returns hopping backward to his seat, which is the perch. 
Dji'wa’ (William Gordon) dances preity well. At the next song, the bird, now the 
dancer, alights from his perch and advances in hops looking around. When the Eagle 
lands that is the way it looks around. 

When the Eagle stoops over it to eat, he can no longer see and he eats fast. The 
man runs out behind him and takes the feathers [he thought the wing feathers]. 
This is better than killing him. Some fans are tail feathers. One had to be care- 
ful because an Hagle can carry a deer away. 


Informant has heard of luring an eagle to a platform on a tree and 
shooting it. 

Pit trapping, however, seemed unfamiliar. He had heard of tribes 
to the west doing that way. 


PIT TRAPPING 
SnorER’s Account 


Snorer, the sage of ‘High Bank” above the Allegheny River, knows 
a method for obtaining eagle feathers by pit trapping. 


There are no eagle feathers now. In olden times, they got them from the eagle 
insome way. Itisalongstory. [Here Snorer held out for a fee which I agreed to 
pay.] 

In the olden times men and warriors had little difficulty getting near animals. 
They were pure (hodi’ya’dawa-d9’)—an uncontaminated man can approach with- 
out being detected by animals. 

At that time, they wanted to procure eagle feathers to make fans (gane’’e’). 
Now two or three went into the woods to a place where there was an opening and 
there they killed a deer; and one opened it and ripped it. Then he hollered, ‘‘I 
give you this, all you who like meat,”’ and then he stepped back and secluded him- 
self in the brush. 

Soon then the Eagles fly down and eat of the meat where it is flayed, but the Ea- 
gle suspects something. He takes a few bites, then looks around. He eats again. 
Finally, he flies away. This was do’nyonda’ (Hagle). 

Then another species comes down. Itis of more enormous size—abig bird. He 
eats of the meat. So just like the others, he suspects something. Finally he 
becomes scared and flies away. This was still do’nyonda’, only larger. Another 
bird approaches. 

Now another bird descends. He does the same. He eats a little, but he sus- 
pects something is coming. He is a great buzzard (ga’hga’go-wa-’) (messenger of 
the sky birds), but he flies away, frightened. 

Another bird comes down. Now this one keeps eating, eating and not looking. 
Well, he is finally filled up with allhe wants. He fliesaway. This was Dew Eagle 
or cloud-dweller (shada’ge’+a-’) 30 

This is how they procured feathers: After that he fixed some way to hide hime 
self beneath the place where he spreads the meat. He places sticks athwart the pit 


#0 Four is the ceremonial sequence ; the fourth bird is the one desired. 


100 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ Bute. 156 


to hold the meat, and covers the struts with brush. Now when they come down, 
he waits for the bird he wants and then when it is busy eating, he grabs it by the 
legs, and pulls out all the feathers he wants. He takes a few from the wings and 
from the tail. Then he lets the bird go. That is the way they get the feathers. 

Seneca eagle trapping apparently occurred in the fall. The ac- 
counts from Cherkoee, Shawnee, and Hidatsa suggest many points for 
inquiry (Mooney, 1900; Speck, Cherokee Ms.; Voegelin, Ms.; Wilson, 
1928, p. 179). However, Snorer does not specify that spring trapping 
is to be avoided. 

Snorer had heard of great danger to be avoided in taking eagle 
feathers because of the “‘little bugs” on the feathers. ‘They are like a 
flea or a louse. The eagle is awful poison. It has great power. So 
the fleas must be very poisonous (powerful) to stay on the eagle which 
flies so high above sight. These birds grow up next to heaven.” 

Snorer did not specify how long one should wait before taking feath- 
ers, only that the lice are very poisonous. 

The Seneca unlike the Shawnee do not extract the pith from the feathers. The 
feather has great power of strength. The pith makes it healthy and wearing it 
makes the owner healthy because he burned tobacco to make easy taking the 
feathers. 


Feathers are to make a headdress. Anyone may wearit. Any male could wear 
the feather cap. The feather whirls, looksabout. Tie on red ribbons for decoration. 


Snorer laughed at Henan Scroge’s remark about a torn cluster of 
feathers looking angry. ‘‘A war chief would wear two feathers; war- 
riors have only one feather.* Sometimes, a warrior would merely 
hang it on his hair.” 


The information which I have cited leads to the following conclusions 
concerning Seneca eagle hunting: The Huron, Cayuga, and early Sen- 
eca shot eagles with bow and arrow. The Seneca custom of sacrific- 
ing the first deer on the fall hunt to the meat-eating birds of prey pre- 
sented a well-established pattern on which the Plains eagle-trapping 
technique was readily grafted. The myths and legends associated with 
the origin and procuring of the Little Water Medicine are secondary 
rationalizations belonging to the period of Iroquois conquest, about 
1680-1750, when eagle trapping was most probably introduced from 
the Southeast or Middle West. Association with the fall hunt and fear 
of bird lice which appear in spring would indicate that eagle hunting as 
in the West was an autumn activity (Wilson, 1928, p. 179). Sometimes 
only a single feather was taken and the bird released. Mooney re- 
marks that the Plains Indians are not customarily satisfied with a single 
feather (Mooney, 1900, p. 492), and Seneca accounts say nothing about 
strangling the birds. Nor are they kept in cages as among the Pueblos. 


3t Champlain, 1922—36, vol. 2, pp. 97 89; the three Mohawk war chiefs at the Battle of Lake George in 1609 
wore three plumes, 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 101 


A full eagle tail contains 12 feathers. Frequently Seneca fans have 6 
feathers apiece, but 4 is also common, 4 being the ceremonial number. 
The feathers are suspended parallel to the shaft, a method reminiscent 
of the Hidatsa method of twining the 12 tail-feather quills into a fan or 
mat (Wilson, 1928, p. 170 and fig. 11, b). 

Snorer’s account supports Curtin, who worked among the Cat- 
taraugus Seneca between 1883 and 1887; the tradition of Seneca 
eagle trapping which appears in Mooney’s Cherokee has been until 
now the solitary source for its occurrence among the Seneca (Mooney, 
1900, p. 367).*2 Furthermore, the traditional association of the cus- 
tom with a peace mission to the Cherokee about 1770 gives a basic 
date when the Seneca were actively employing the widespread Calu- 
met Dance as an approach to a peace treaty. 


THE CHEROKEE PEACE 


A Seneca war chief named “ Arrow” (ga’’nq) decided to lead a peace 
mission to the Cherokee.*® The legend describes mustering the war 
party and their retirement from the women to the deep forest to take 
emetics, bathe, swim, and wash their bodies during 10 days. 


At the end of the ten days the chief said, ‘‘We shall go now on a high hill and 
there make a trench the length of a man’s body. Then we will put a man into it, 
placing bows across so he cannot be seen and on top of all the whole carcass of 
a deer.” 

Now they had invited s‘hadahgeah to come down, and the people stayed near 
the trench. The man under the bush heard a noise, and saw a common eagle 
come, eat a little, and then go off; then the eagle came back again, ate, and went 
away in another direction. It seemed as if it notified the other birds, for they 
also came. The man who was lying underneath the brush scared them away, for 
they did not want common birds to eat the meat. After a while the concealed 
man heard a tremendous noise, which he knew was made by s‘hadahgeah, the 
bird they wanted. S‘hadahgeah is a very cautious bird; it looked everywhere 
before beginning to eat the meat. The man got his hand carefully around the 
bird’s tail, which he held firmly, and when the bird flew away he pulled out one 
feather. It took two years to get a full tail of feathers; hence they had to entice 
down a good many birds in this way before they got enough for their purpose. 
When secured, the party was ready to start for the Cherokee country. [Curtin 
and Hewitt, 1918, p. 429. (Italics mine—W. N. F.)] 


The legend continues that after many days’ travel they found the 
first Cherokee village stockaded. At dawn two Seneca warriors 
went forward dancing, adorned with eagle feathers, and shouted the 
signal yell. The Cherokee recognized the customary approach char- 
acteristic of the Calumet Dance and convened at the town house. 


32 Hewitt does not refer to the earlier publication of Seneca legends bearing on the Cherokee Wars (Cur- 
tin and Hewitt, 1918, p. 428). 

% The name Arrow belongs to the Seneca Bear Clan at Allegany; Reuben White, an old longhouse 
officer, had this name as a boy, and people still call him ga’’ng as a nickname. 


102 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Butn. 156 


The Seneca ambassadors followed the two dancers into the town house 
where they danced until tired. The Cherokee did not dance. 

Then the Seneca leader outlined their mission and offered a wam- 
pum belt in token of good faith. The Cherokee chief accepted it, 
bidding his people gather food for the morrow’s feast and council. 
The abundance of food was greater than their capacities and they ate 
a second day while the chiefs made addresses of mutual faith. 

We have decided. . . to accept this wampum. . . and to be friendly and to bury 
all the weapons of war so no man may reach them again. 

To which the Seneca chief replied: 

“We are very glad that you have accepted our offer, and now all of us have put 
our weapons together, and the white wampum shall hang between us, and the belt 
shall be as long as a man, reaching down to the ground.” 

Then the Cherokee chief said to his people: 

“Now is the time for any of you that wishes to do so to pick out relatives from 
among the Seneca to be adopted.” 

When the notice was given the Cherokee women picked out one man saying, 
‘‘You are to be our Uncle, or Mother’s brother.’”? Some other woman took another 
for a brother; and finally all were taken except Ganon, the chief. Then Ganon, 
being alone, a Cherokee said, ‘‘No one has a right to take Ganon away, for a young 
man is here who will claim him as his father.’—Everyone was pleased with the 
place and the relationship. [Curtin and Hewitt, 1918, p. 430.] 


THE ROOTS OF THE EAGLE DANCE 


The origin myths, cultural memories of eagle hunting, and con- 
temporary traditions of earlier meetings all specify that the modern 
Eagle Dance ritual has evolved as a medicine society from an 
ancient war and peace ritual which antedated the preaching of 
Handsome Lake (1800). Many of the sacred and secular dances that 
have survived among the modern Seneca were once associated with 
war. The dance marked the organization and preparation of a war 
party and preceded its departure on the war path; likewise it cele- 
brated their return after a victorious expedition. A few dances were 
definitely associated with peace. Since the last war whoop faded 
along the Niagara frontier after the War of 1812, the war dances no 
longer have their old significance. However, as Morgan observed, 
there is no cycle of dances from which the Seneca derive more pleas- 
ure. Their original function has disappeared, but they have survived 
for inducing rain, celebrating friendships, and elevating the mentally 
depressed, ‘‘curing’’? humans suffering from paralytic or enervating 
ailments. Dancers compete in these dances out of sheer local pride 
at all field days. Two war dances have become sacred religious rites 
of Thanksgiving. 

Striking for quiet so that the speakers may talk in turn is the com- 
mon feature of all war dances. An individual signals for quiet by 
beating a post so that he may list his services or recite his war record. 


Fanon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 103 


Early travelers and missionaries tell how many tribes from the St. 
Lawrence Valley to the edge of the Plains beyond the Great Lakes and 
down the Mississippi to the Gulf shared this custom. To the Iroquois, 
the feature of “‘striking’’ combines in one class the Rite of Personal 
Chant (ado’-we’), the Thanksgiving or Drum Dance (gane’o’9), Sioux 
or War Dance (wasa’'se’), Striking-a-stick Dance (wa’’e’no’e”’), and 
the Hagle Dance (gane’’oda‘dq’). All these dances provide the 
ritualistic setting for an individual to give vent to his personal feel- 
ings; they offer an escape for emotions, which are released in the tra- 
ditional manner prescribed by the culture which assigns them all to 
the general category of ‘‘striking songs” (gane’’gwi’e”’ oeng’Q). 

The rite of Personal Chant is ancient with the Iroquois. Each 
individual has his own set of songs which are to some extent the proper- 
ty of his family and possibly his clan. They range in character from 
war chants, through a motley series of ridiculous songs frequently 
having sexual reference, to personal thanksgiving for members of one’s 
family or a “‘friend.”’ It is the song of adoption by the clan. It is the 
last song sung by a warrior in torture or on the point of death, and each 
individual takes one with him “‘on the long trail” to the hereafter. 
The individual stands and sings part of his song and then, hesitatingly 
placing one heel forward, rocks his weight onto his toes as his other foot 
lags, and then advances in the rhythm of his chant. Thus he traverses 
the length of the room and returns. Men chant in unison and women 
clap hands. It is one of the Four Ceremonies which the Seneca 
believe were given to them by the Creator, and which were exalted by 
Handsome Lake (Fenton, 1936 b, p. 16; 1942, pp. 18-20). Of the many 
accounts coming down to us in the earlier literature, attesting its long 
use, Lafitau comes closest to conveying the real spirit of the chant. 
Each individual knocks a post and paces out his song. Then they 
publicly present the heads of dogs, which were cooked in the soup, to 
the greatest warriors to excite their courage. They shame the timid 
into enlisting by putting ashes on their heads. Only those who have 
proved their bravery may strike one of the assistants as if he were an 
enemy, and those who misrepresent pay forfeits of presents to the 
injured (Lafitau, 1724, vol. 1, pp. 521-523; vol. 2, pp. 189-191). 

The Thanksgiving or Drum Dance takes its name from the skin- 
headed water drum on which the singer beats out the rythm for the 
dancers. As one of the Four Ceremonies attributed to the Creator, 
it is mentioned in the great Iroquois genesis myth (Hewitt, 1928, pp. 
559, 563), which, however, may represent secondary rationalization. 
Before the time of Handsome Lake, at great celebrations Drum Dance 
afforded an opportunity for warriors and chiefs to cry out at the end of 
each song (wih ya’’’) and recite their war records which they ended in 
a chant, crying (wa‘hi’h); but now Twenty-kettles at Tonawanda 


104 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


believes that these old cries belonging to war speech should be aban- 
doned. Handsome Lake interspersed the songs with prayers to the 
Creator returning thanks for the progressive stations of the pantheon 
(Fenton, 1936 b, pp. 14, 16; 1942, pp. 6-10). 

War Dance came from some other tribe. Morgan (1901, vol. 1, 
p. 258) ascribes its origin to the Sioux; some informants said the 
Shawnee. The words and music do have a decided flavor of the Plains 
Indians, and possibly both derived it from an intermediary source 
(Fenton, 1942, pp. 27-28; Kurath, this paper, p. 288 ff.). The older 
Seneca call it eni’’dje’ and associate it with Sun, the great warrior, our 
elder brother, but hi’’ng, the Thunderer, is particularly fond of it. 
Mary Jemison’s narrative says that War Dance “originated about the 
time that the Six Nations commenced the old war with the Cherokees, 
about one hundred years ago”? (Seaver, 1932, pp. 167-168). This 
would date its appearance among the Iroquois about 1724. Inform- 
ants and historians agree that this dance preceded the departure and 
celebrated the return of a war party. 

A war chief went into seclusion, and if a dream or a vision attended 
his fasting, he returned to the village and struck the war post. An 
old man went through the houses summoning the warriors to a feast 
of dog’s flesh. They gathered at the war post or a post was driven 
into the ground, and they sat about it. The leader commenced 
reciting his exploits, punctuating his deeds by striking the post. 
As the drum quickened, others followed until all were dancing together 
without formation. Each warrior who struck the post pledged 
to follow the party. The following morning they departed, stop- 
ping at the edge of the village to leave their fine clothes with their 
women and pick up provisions for the journey (Parkman, 1851, vol. 1, 
pp. 175-176; Heckewelder, 1881, pp. 209-210; Zeisberger, 1910, p. 
121). Zeisberger and Heckewelder concur that the Iroquois fre- 
quently met in peace to relate their war exploits, but that great store 
was put upon truth, and in reciting they rigidly followed one another 
in order of seniority. . 

In several instances bloodshed followed. Heckewelder, perhaps 
speaking of Delaware, relates an instance when an insulted chief 
stepped out of the circle and struck dead an impudent boaster (Hecke- 
welder, 1881, p. 210). At the adoption of Thomas Morris in 1790, 
the Cayuga war chief Fish Carrier averted an impending brawl by 
pulling down the war post after an Oneida warrior had boasted of 
scalps taken from the other Iroquois during the Sullivan Expedition 
of 1779 (Stone, 1841 (edition 1866, pp. 43-45)). As late as 1812, 
Farmer’s Brother bashed in the head of a Chippewa spy who had the 
temerity at a War Dance in the Seneca camp to boast of the Seneca 
and Yankees he had killed and scalped (Parker, 1919, pp. 35-36). 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 105 


Moses Van Campen, Horatio Jones, and other victims of the border 
wars of the Revolution leave vivid accounts of how returning war 
parties stopped at Painted Post on the junction of the Tioga and 
Cohocton Rivers to celebrate the Brag Dance. ‘‘Anyone could brag 
and dance after making a small present to the ‘master of ceremonies,’ 
usually the head warrior” (Harris, 1903, p. 404; Hubbard, 1898, pp. 
238-239). Scalps were brought home as proof of their exploits. 
Morgan has vividly described the modern War Dance which was per- 
formed in his honor at Tonawanda, December 3, 1849, and he pub- 
lished the greater part of his original notes including the speeches of 
ridicule (Morgan, in Gilchrist, 1936, vol. 2, pp. 36, 123-143; 1901, 
vol. 1, pp. 257 ff.; Parker, 1919, pp. 280 ff.). Any of these speeches 
fit so well within the pattern of the modern Eagle Dance that I am 
convinced that Morgan, had he known it, would have mentioned their 
similarity. If War Dance has not changed since Morgan’s writing, 
it is still used in time of drought to bring rain, and it marks the rite 
of male ‘friends.’ 

Striking-the-stick Dance, which Morgan also marked as obsolete, 
belongs to the class of fighting songs (henodi’o’hdahgwa’). He- 
strikes-the-rushes has heard that it originated with the Shawnee when 
they were allied to the Seneca, and that many of the present songs and 
dances were derived from them. It was really a war dance performed 
before the departure and on the return of a war party. Two lines of 
dancers face each other, advance, and as they meet, they strike their 
clubs; they pass, turn, and return. ‘The dancers demonstrate how they 
can fight and scalp. The war pole, which was diagonally striped with 
red paint, was set up at one end of the place, for a speaker to strike at 
the end of each song. Today, Striking-the-stick ordinarily follows the 
War Dance. A Coldspring informant thinks that the speeches en- 
couraging the dancers survive from encouragements which were 
handed down to the warriors by old men, and that the ancient custom 
of wishing good luck to a war party developed into wishing a host 
well at a medicine dance. Gifts are distributed. The dance is now 
believed to propitiate the Sun, the great warrior, whereas War Dance 
is the property of the Thunderers. The association of war dances with 
Thunder and the Sun is a widespread North American concept. Eagle 
Dance is addressed to the Dew Eagle who, for the Seneca, shares the 
function of watering the earth with anthropomorphic Thunderers who 
perform the function of the Algonquian Thunder Birds. 

The early historians did not always distinguish the various war 
dances, and many were unaware that they described separate cere- 
monies under one rubric. Besides, the process of historic change has 
altered the details of the old war feasts, and new dances have been 
grafted to the old war-feast pattern. The most remarkable aspect of 


106 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156 


this long historical perspective is the vitality of the war-feast pattern 
and its amazing stability in the face of changing conditions and 
functions. Having observed the modern medicine society rituals, 
particularly those which have developed around the war dances, one 
can pick out their essential elements in older literature of which the 
following account by Cadwallader Colden for the Mohawk is typical: 


When any of the young Men of these Nations have a Mind to signalize them- 
selves, and to gain a Reputation among their Countrymen, by some notable 
Enterprize against their Enemy, they at first communicate their Design to two or 
three of their most intimate Friends; and if they come into it, an Invitation is 
made, in their Names, toall the young Men of the Castle, to feast on Dog’s Flesh; 
but whether this be, because Dog’s Flesh is most agreeable to Indian Palates, or 
whether it be as an Emblem of Fidelity, for which the Dog is distinguished by all 
Nations, that it is always used on this Occasion, I have not sufficient Informa- 
tion to determine. When the Company is met, the Promoters of the Enterprize 
set forth the Undertaking on the best Colours they can; they boast of what they 
intend to do, and incite others to join, from the Glory there is to be obtained; and 
all who eat of the Dog’s Flesh, thereby inlist themselves. 

The Night before they set out, they make a grand Feast; to this all the noted 
Warriors of the Nation are invited; and here they have their War Dance, to the 
Beat of a Kind of a Kettle-drum. The Warriors are seated in two Rows in the 
House, and each rises up in his Turn, and sings the great Acts he has himself 
performed, and the Deeds of his Ancestors; and this is always accompanied with a 
Kind of Dance, or rather Action, representing the Manner in which they were 
performed; and from Time to Time, all present join in a Chorus, applauding every 
notable Act. They exaggerate the Injuries they have at any Time received from 
their Enemies, and extol the Glory which any of their Ancestors have gained by 
their Bravery and Courage; so that they work up their Spirits to a high degree of 
warlike Enthusiasm. I have sometimes persuaded some of their young Indians to 
act these Dances, for our Diversion, and to show us the Manner of them; and even, 
on these Occasions, they have work’d themselves up to such a pitch, that they have 
made all present uneasy. [Colden, 1902, vol. 1, p. xxii.] 


Thus, war is an individual enterprise. The feast animal is a dog. 
The dance is accompanied by the drum which suggests (wasa’‘se’ or 
wa’’e/no’e’’), and individuals recite their previous exploits the night 
before their departure. Before leaving they record the expedition in 
red paint on bark, with clan symbols, and later return to the same 
place to make a record of casualties, scalps taken, and prisoners.™* 


Feasts on an animal head echo an earlier ceremonial cannibalism. 
The Huron, Mohawk, and Oneida tribes held feasts where the head, 
frequently the head of an enemy captive after torture, went into the 
kettle and then as a choice morsel went first to the chiefs. In the war 
feast the head, often a dog’s head cooked in the soup, was presented to 
the captain who carried it in his hands inciting others to enlist. By 


34 Colden, 1902, vol. 1, pp. xxiv-xxv; O’Callaghan, 1849, vol.1, pp. 5-8; Beauchamp, 1916, pp. 37, 41, 46, 100, 
109. Mary Jemison’s husband had a painted record of his achievements which he loved to relate (Seaver, 
1932, pp. 104 ff.; Fenton, 1950, pp. 3-5). 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 107 


the middle of the eighteenth century, the accounts refer to whole hogs 
being boiled in the corn soup and warriors successively danced with the 
hog’s head in their hands. Thus, pork replaced the dog as the war 
feast food, and later it supplanted the bear and venison in all feasts, 
until today the pig’s head is the ceremonial head, the piéce de résistance. 
Aside from the disappearance of the game animals, it is easy to under- 
stand the rapid introduction of pork as a ceremonial food, because the 
modern Iroquois have an almost insatiable appetite for fresh pork. 
The present use of the hog’s head, nevertheless, evokes the same 
symbolisms involved in the ancient manipulation of a human or dog’s 
head. On certain occasions, an individual may pick up the head and 
march toward the women’s end of the longhouse, chanting a personal 
song, praising the exploits of his ancestors, or ridiculing his father’s 
clansman’s daughter. In all the medicine feasts, requiring the use of a 
head, except at Tonawanda and Onondaga where chicken is cooked for 
EKagle Dance, the head man or woman passes the head first to the ritual 
sponsor, who occupies the position of the ancient war leader, and after 
him among the singers, dancers, speakers, and other functionaries 
(Thwaites, 1896-1901, Jesuit Relations, vol. 10, pp. 181, 183, 229; 
vol. 50, p. 683; Megapolensis, 1792, p. 522; Lafitau, 1724, vol. 2, pp. 
189-191; Colden, 1902, vol. 1, p. xxii; Beauchamp, 1916, p. 89; Zeis- 
berger, 1910, pp. 102-103, 139-140; Loskiel, 1794, p. 146). 


Contemporary traditions of earlier Eagle Dance meetings describe 
how the Iroquois abandoned recounting war records after the teaching 
of their prophet, Handsome Lake, about 1800. Other evidence for a 
shift of the Eagle Dance from a war society to a peacetime medicine 
society is of the same order as that cited for the four other war 
dances mentioned above. Seneca informants at Coldspring follow 
Djidg’gwas of the Wolf Clan: 


Not very long ago the society met indoors early in the morning, and one hundred 
years ago they set up the striking pole outside and met there before dawn. Long 
ago they stuck up a pole and built a fire near it early in the morning. 

The old people used to talk about war. They described the deeds they had 
achieved and the number of scalps they had taken. It made trouble, inciting fur- 
ther war, as they used to talk of war in gane’’gwi’e’. They would brag of how 
many people they had killed. 

The old people decided, after the wars had begun to be fewer, that all this talk 
made for trouble. They agreed that it was bad to speak of fighting all the time 
as it might incite some young fellows to try it, that they, as old men, might also 
speak of prowess. They decided to give it up and speak only good words instead. 
Now gane’’gwa’e’’ is composed of only talking wi’-yo- or good. War dance— 
wasa’ se’ [the Sioux War Dance]—was nearly the same kind of a dance as 
gane’’gwia’e-’, They changed it also from a recitation of war records to wi’-yo- 
or talking good. 

Striking-the-stick Dance has the same kind of history. 

982306—53——_8 


108 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


The same informant believes that the dances date from the Cherokee 
Wars, and he narrated a tradition of the peace negotiations which, 
unlike Curtin’s record, describes the Cherokee coming to the Seneca. 
However, an earlier account, which Laura Wright took down from 
Esquire Johnson, who in turn had it from two Allegheny Seneca who 
accompanied the peace delegation, says the Iroquois went west and 
south to the Cherokee.*® 

Wood-eater, too, thinks that Eagle Dance was formerly used for a 
dance in war when the warriors threw a knife or a hatchet into a tree 
and proclaimed their bravery and willingness to follow a war party. 
However, Snorer insists that it was a peace dance. 

Snorer enumerated the following ceremonies as formerly connected 
with war and the recitation of war records: Kagle Dance, War 
Dance, Personal Chant, and Striking-a-stick Dance. 

Our leader, Handsome Lake, explained what he said he had heard from the 
“angels’”’ [four messengers] that there was no longer any use in continuing this 
war business. We should cease telling war exploits and enlisting war parties. In 
olden times, when a man struck the stick, he would tell how smart he is, how 
clever a fighter, how many scalps he had taken on past raids! Now they have 
changed the speeches to begging and praying that the one who puts up the dance 
will have good luck and recover through this [ceremony of striking], which is 
powerful. 

Snorer tells that War Dance was used in organizing a war party, 
that Striking-a-stick Dance followed their return, and Eagle Dance 
pertained to peace. His description, which I obtained on two occa- 
sions, fits the customary approach of the Calumet dancers. Taken 
together with Curtin’s tradition of the Cherokee peace, these are 
quite interesting data. 

That gane’’gwi’e’’ is a peace dance. When they have ceased fighting entirely, 


then they gather up a group of Seneca, as many as they can get, and approach 
the other party dancing the Eagle Dance. The dancers are out in front. 


Many of the old folks, among them George Titus, used to tell this. 


[Snorer has forgotten the names of the tribes involved, but] there had been 
fighting among the western nations, the Ojibwa and others. A great council con- 
vened ‘“‘down west” near Detroit. The Senecas went down there because they 
wanted peace. They held a big dance and gathered up all the people there, and 
they made peace. They accepted the other nations. They shook hands and 
resolved never to fight again. 


At this time the Seneca were living at “big hill’? (djongdowa’‘geh) 
when this trouble had occurred in the west. He thinks their village 
was then near the head of Seneca Lake. 


There was to be a gathering of many nations near Detroit. When the Senecas 
arrived at the great council, the other nations were surprised because they ap- 


38 Caswell, 1892, pp. 259-262; Ms. notes of Mrs. Asher Wright’s interview with Esquire Johnson (1876). 


Fun70n] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 109 


proached dancing the peace dance. They kept dancing. This was Eagle Dance 
which had been used in war. 

{Snorer continued] Up to this time the other nations only had the scalp dances 
[Sioux War Dance and Striking-a-stick Dance], so the Senecas spread themselves 
among the other nations in order that the other nations might learn it. One of 
the Seneca chiefs made a speech to the effect that his people desired that there 
be peace between them and the western nations. The western Indians accepted. 


Snorer thinks that this council occurred before Cornplanter’s time, 
before the Seneca were living at Buffalo (diodo’So'we’, ‘‘Moss on the 
creek bank’’). This would date the council before the Revolution, 
and the place and dates suggest the time of Pontiac’s conspiracy 
im, 1763. 

I realize the fallibility of relying on traditional history, but when 
tradition bears out recorded history, it should be heard. Albeit, I am 
inclined to think that Snorer’s typical Seneca ethnocentrism has re- 
versed the natural course of diffusion from the Central Algonquians, 
who were in possession of the Calumet Dance a century earlier, and 
who conceivably introduced the dance among the Seneca. Snorer’s 
real contribution is the fact that he could describe his people as being 
in possession of a ceremony which they lacked before their westeru 
wars, and which also crops up in traditions of the same period, dated 
by the end of the Cherokee War, 1770. 

A fragment of a tradition of the Great Fighter comes from Edward 
Cornplanter at Newtown, Cattaraugus Reservation, in 1905. The ab- 
breviated notes of the recorder, Dr. A. C. Parker, are pertinent to 
our problem, and are quoted with his permission. 

A Seneca war party saw the so-called bird dance among some tribe in the west 
[but this may also mean south, as the war path went west first to the Ohio settle- 
ments]. They saw some people dancing this in a house. They had sticks with 
feathers, long sticks with plumes. They were boasting what they did. The 
Senecas bragged back. They only struck the striped stick. They had pipes on 
sticks but they kept them in their pockets. ‘The Senecas were afraid to use their 
pipes. It was Sioux (wasa’-se) smoke throwing. [??] They took captives, 
killing one, and taking the rest back to the Seneca country. 


E. Cornplanter thinks that this started the Eagle Dance at Cattaraugus at 
the old longhouse before the others came from Geneseo.* 


He-strikes-the-rushes is unfamiliar with this legend, although 
several old men at Newtown said that captives introduced foreign 
dances. 


My father used to say, ‘‘We have many dances without origin legends, because 
captives brought them. Others came from animals.” 

The Eagle Dance is supposed to be purely Seneca. It may have been introduced 
by some other tribe, like some of our dances, but regardless of other tribes having 
Eagle dances, we claim it as our own. As a society, it is similar to the Medicine 


36 Parker, MS. The Seneca village at Geneseo was burned in Sullivan’s raid, 1779. It was abandoned 
some years later. 


110 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156 


Company, being limited only to members and often initiated into by sickness. 
The symptoms are such that the afflicted person gets visions or dreams of large 
white birds with blood all over their beaks. This is often followed by nose-bleeding 
to alarge degree. I had my share when I first joined. Dad and I used to have it 
together. Like all medical society dances, the ceremony is performed with an 
Indian tobacco and the usual imitation of crows feeding over the pig’s head. 
During the Midwinter Festival, those who follow the Eagle Dance from house to 
house have red paint on their right cheek. All of these dances—War Dance, 
Striking-a-stick, and Eagle Dance—are ended by someone striking a stick or 
stamping his foot and then making a speech. They tell tales of travel, jokes, but 
there is no blacking the faces of liars, as they stripe the faces of men who approach 
too near the women who are singing thanks for the crops. [Then a man’s father’s 
clansman’s daughter may black his face.] 

These rather lengthy statements of Seneca informants bear upon our 
thesis, and illustrate the way various Seneca individuals react to the 
queries of the ethnologist who often implies that some tribe ‘‘over 
there” has a similar ritual. Once the idea is conveyed to the inform- 
ant that another people may share a ceremony, he feels a sense of 
lost values and deflated pride in what he had considered to be the 
unique possession of his people. At such inferences, Snorer would 
close up, but He-strikes-the-rushes, as we have seen, usually ration- 
alized his people’s customs, and added to my store of knowledge. 

They say our Maker created the Dew Eagles for our benefit in order that they 
can assist him by rendering aid to chosen ones of us here. They seem to be pow- 
erful and rather sacred birds to us. But, as I say, if you travel among the tribes, 
even out west, you will likely find similarity in most of our customs and rituals. 
Then among us Iroquois, we differ to some extent. Take the ones in Canada 
and the Onondagas, they have a little different system than ours. 

Uncovering the roots of the Eagle Dance has disclosed its relation- 
ship to a group of war dances featured by individual recitation. The 
content of speeches underwent a change about 1800. We have seen 
that the Eagle Dance was once used as an approach in peace treaties 
and that it was of foreign provenience. The idea that this sacred 
ritual may be of foreign derivation, and therefore spurious and not 
genuinely Iroquois, comes as a great shock to the present generation 
of Seneca Eagle dancers, who have passively accepted it as a vital 
part of their ceremonial life. 

Two more problems remain as to its former uses: First, were the 
bundles taken on the war path? Second, how do we resolve the 
anomaly that western nations employing the Calumet Dance have 
attached the feather fans to so-called peace pipes which are foreign 
to Iroquois ceremonialism? 

Hemlocks-lying-down said that Dew Eagle belongs to the Medi- 
cine Company, and that departing war parties used to sponsor the 
Eagle Dance to derive their luck from Dew Eagle. 


They erected the forked striking pole and displayed scalps taken on previous 


Funton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 111 


expeditions. The speakers talked of killing and scalping, how many scalps they 
had brought home the previous trip, but our ruler sent word by his messengers 
through Handsome Lake for us to cease war speech. They changed over the 
society, changed the words to begging for good luck, health, and good behavior. 

They did not take the pole and eagle bundle on the war path. They did not 
take the Little Water Medicine [meat powders], but the second kind, the medi- 
cine composed of more than twenty herbs [hadi’yawitha’]. 

When they returned, the leader put up Eagle Society again and described all 
that had happened on the war path. It is the leader’s duty to sponsor the soci- 
ety to solicit aid from Dew Eagle when they go, and return thanks that they 
have got back. 

Snorer and He-strikes-the-rushes both had heard that the war 
leader carried a bundle on the war trail. He carried his package of 
sacred medicine and a gourd rattle which he hung in a tree at night. 
If the gourd fell and broke, this was an evil omen, and the party re- 
turned home. ‘The oldest Little Water Medicine has the power to 
revive a person with seven mortal wounds, as long as the patient can 
swallow.” My information does not state that the leader carried a 
forked pole which he inclined toward the enemy country. There is 
little likelihood that the Eagle Dance bundle was used outside the 
ceremony itself, and it is by no means a tribal palladium; the Eagle 
bundles are individually owned, whereas the Little Water Medicine 
is considered tribal property. 

There are few instances of circuitous pipe passing in Iroquois ritu- 
als. The early sources speak of individual chiefs sitting in council, 
each smoking his own pipe incessantly. This pattern still prevails. 
Many foreign nations brought great pipes to Onondaga. Sir William 
Johnson gave them a handsome peace pipe, but the peace pipe has 
never become a vital part of council procedure. The dance fans are 
entirely divorced from any pipe notion. Unlike the Pawnee feathered 
Hako stems, they are not hollow shafts. The basic calumet idea, 
however, is the feathered stem, which, when it becomes also attached 
to the altar, symbolized by the pipe, combines the tobacco invocation 
concept with the fan that sweeps aside evil. The Iroquois have no 
ceremony which resembles the Pipe Bundle Dance of the northern 
Plains, but their Eagle Dance ritual more nearly resembles descrip- 
tions of the middle Mississippi Valley Calumet Dance with the 
feathered stems of the Pawnee Hako type. 

The few instances of pipe passing in the Seneca medicine societies are 
confined to societies bearing no other relationship to the Pipe Bundle 
Dance. In the Dark Dance, the matron in charge, after the opening 
address and the tobacco-burning prayer to the “Little Folk” and the 
charm animals, lights a pipe of Indian tobacco. Sheusesanypipe. She 
passes it first to the beneficiary of the feast, then to the head singer, his 
helper, and to the rest of the members, going around the lodge counter- 


112 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


clockwise. Everyone takes a few puffs. This is in Dark Dance only. 
In Bear Dance, however, the dancers file by and in turn puff from a pipe 
held out by the conductor. But in the ceremonies of the Medicine 
Company, members bring their own pipes, and a bowl of Indian to- 
bacco is set before them as in Eagle Dance. An origin legend for the 
Medicine Company by Snorer describes the medicine animals at the 
cure of Bloody-hand smoking individual pipes between periods of 
singing. Thus, once more, the same ritual procedure connects the 
Eagle Society with the Medicine Company. 

The Eagle Society, therefore, belongs to a group of linked societies 
in which the members impersonate the first animal members. To the 
Seneca of Newtown and Tonawanda especially, the Eagle Society is 
also the Medicine Society (hong’tcino’’g¢’). The Seneca distinguish 
three classes of members. The first includes the holders of the Little 
Water Medicine bundles, and all those who have been cured of wounds 
by taking the sacred medicine, and who renew their association with 
the mystic animals and prevent accidents recurring by celebrating a 
ritual called ye’i’do's, or, collectively, hade’i’do’s. The second 
class of members includes those who have entered the society 
after a dream of impending misfortune, of bodily injury, or of hearing 
the songs (all dreams call for ye’i’do’'s, the celebration ritual, to help or 
cure them). ‘The third order of membership includes those who have 
dreamt of birds, have heard the songs of Eagle Dance in a dream, or 
have had its ritual performed at the suggestion of a clairvoyant. Fall- 
ing-day at Tonawanda explained the three orders of membership. 


They claim that they are all the same society, only they have different names. 
The Eagle Society belongs to Dew Eagle, but the three orders are all of the same 
medicine company. For instance, in ye’i’do’s, they bite off chunks of meat from 
the animal head as it goes around, erying like crows. They do this also in Eagle 
Dance. This is wa‘diga’hga’’, behaving in the manner of crows feasting on 
carrion. That’s why they say ga’’ga’”’ [high tone] like crows. The celebration 
group [hade’i’do’s] and those who sing at the three all-night sessions to renew the 
strength of the medicine are members of the same medicine company; but Eagle 
Dance is a distinct order belonging to Dew Eagle, who is also a member of the 
great Medicine Company, like Wolf and Bear, and all animals who assisted at the 
cure of the good hunter. 


Bear, Buffalo, and Otter Societies are distinctly of a different order. 
These are shamanistic societies and comprise a group with the Society 
of Faces, which set a high premium on possession as a sign of super- 
natural acceptance (Fenton, 1937, p.228;1941b). Nor have the latter 
societies any specific connection with war or curing wounds. They 
are rather devoted to fulfilling traumatic derangements. Falling-day 
remarked that it was not required of him to participate in the rituals of 
the societies whose tutelaries have not accepted him for membership 
by making him sick. He is a chief and has lived around these rituals 


Fanon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE Ms 


all his life, but he does not belong to several societies, although he has 
helped out at Midwinter Festival by singing for them. He mentioned 
how others who do not belong go and participate, implying that such 
behavior he considered both undignified and dangerous. 


CLASSIFICATION OF DEW EAGLES 


Informants differ as to the exact number of Dew Eagles. A Seneca’s 
conception and classification of these mythical birds derives from how 
well he knows the rather extensive oral literature of his people. He 
rationalizes from a personal version of the origin myth, such as Boy 
Carried Away by Dew Eagle, and the oral traditions connected with 
sacrifices at the first kill, eagle baiting, and pit trapping, with which he 
couples bis own observation of the habits of real birds, to the end that 
each Seneca has his own conception of the nature, habits, and powers 
of these supernatural birds; and these personal conceptions vary 
considerably with personal acuity and ornithological interest. 

The Iroquois have observed real birds in their native habitat, and 
they have projected that behavior, magnifying size and character- 
istics, and granting corresponding powers, until they envisage 
mythological birds which “no one has ever seen.” Such is the opera- 
tion of a principle: for everything in the known animal world, there 
is a great prototype in the supernatural world. The fact that super- 
natural birds are seldom, if ever, seen exalts their power, because, 
in Iroquois thinking, in order to be pure and free of contamination 
anything must be secluded from sight. Conversely, the only person 
who has rapport with ‘“‘secluded” things is the one who has himself 
been kept apart from all contamination. Thus one who is born with a 
caul over his head will, if kept in seclusion, have powers of second 
sight. He becomes a pure person and has easy access to all those 
things which exist beyond the pale of vulgar persons who observe only 
the events and phenomena of the common world. Consequently men 
went into seclusion apart from women and purged themselves in order 
to lure down mere eagles, and a few were blessed by seeing the great 
Dew Eagles. Again, when a person takes the Little Water Medicine, 
he must go into seclusion during 4 days, and abstain from grease and 
salt, because the medicinal ingredients derive from birds and animals 
who are secluded (hodi’ya’dawa-dq’). 

He-strikes-the-rushes, my extraordinary interpreter at Tonawanda, 
thinks that the concept of seclusion is what Hewitt, after intense 
study of the old cosmologies, termed ‘‘down-fended.”’ 

Down-fended .. . describes a feature characteristic of a primitive Iroquoian 
custom, which required that certain children should be strictly hidden from the 


sight of all persons save a trustee until they reached the age of puberty . . . the 
down of a cat-tail flag was carefully scattered about the place of concealment, 


114 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


so that no person could pass into the forbidden place without first disturbing the 
down... . Persons so hidden were regarded as uncanny and as endowed 
with an unusual measure of orenda, or magic potence. [Hewitt, 1903, p. 142.] 
The occasion of this seclusion was some omen or prodigy accompanying the birth 
of the child, which indicated that the child was uncanny. ... It seems that 
children born with a caul were thus secluded, and the presence of the caul itself 
may have given rise to the custom. ([Ibid. p. 255.] 


The Dew Eagles wheel in flight among the clouds beyond the sight 
of mortals, and the Seneca call them ‘“‘cloud dwellers” or ‘‘they of the 
vapors” [’o’shada’ge’-a’’]. They are the greatest and highest of all 
the creatures of the air. Dew Eagle collects a pool of dew in the 
hollow in his back between his shoulders and when the Thunderers 
fail in their duty of watering the earth, Dew Eagle tilts his wings and 
the mists descend to refresh the crops. For the Seneca, Dew Eagle 
divides the task of refreshing the earth with “our grandfathers,” the 
Thunderers, anthropomorphic beings, who for the Winnebago and 
Central Algonquians are the Thunder Birds (Radin, 1923, pp. 433, 447 
(bundle feast), 439, 287 (disease); Converse and Parker, 1908, pp. 45- 
47; Curtin and Hewitt, 1918, p. 275; Parker, 1923, p. 16). 

He watches over the Iroquois, and in time of great trouble descends to earth. 
His meat is in the Little Water Medicine, and his songs will revive a person who 
already has approached his grave. He is so tremendous that his wings obscure 


the sun and in landing his forward-thrust talons plow great furrows in the earth, 
leaving ravines. [He-strikes-the-rushes and Awl-breaker, Tonawanda.] 


The Cayuga at Grand River and the New York Onondaga know 
Dew Eagle as ha’’guks, and they ascribe to him similar attributes: 
the hollow-log kidnapping incident, agent of the eagle sickness, and 
it is necessary to sponsor his dance in order to cure a patient of 
convulsions which are thought symbolic of the eagle’s manner of com- 
mencing flight (Waugh, Ms.: John Jamieson, Jr. (Cayuga), 1912, pt. 
B, p. 9; David Key (Onondaga), 1915, vol. 5, p. 18; John Echo (Onon- 
daga), 1915, vol. 5, p. 35). 

Several Seneca informants had specific information concerning the 
suborders of Dew Eagles. Wood-eater gave different names for them 
at separate sittings. On one occasion, he said: 

The great crow [ga’hga’gowa’’] is in continual flight across the earth. It is he 
who warns the Dew Eagle when the people are having a meeting. Dew Eagle is 
the highest above the earth. The head bird is red and called dja’hgwiyo’ or 
dja’hgwiyo’go-wa:’. There are two others closer to the earth and to whom parts 
of the Little Water ritual are addressed. 

Thus Wood-eater had two sets of names for the Dew Eagles: one 
descriptive of their markings, and a second set grading relative altitude 
and proportional greatness. 

The Dew Eagles are of three kinds: 

First, the one nearest the earth is large and white and black. He is called 


Funron] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 115 


the-lower-one [ne’ i’da’genyane-’s]. He is also the-black-spotted-one [djesta’¢’ 
o’dja’hgweonyg’], or the-striped-one [hodja’dage¢’’dja’koh]. He is nearly like a 
hen hawk and sometimes called swe gida’ge’:a-’. 

The second is huge and white and a little higher up, and because of this is 
called ne’ hetge’’ostho’—“‘the-higher-up-a-little,” or “the ones that look white”’ 
[onowo’da’e’ nya’diya’’dode’]. 

The third, or red one, is biggest and flies highest; thus he is called ‘‘the highest’ 
{ne’hetge], or ‘‘the-red-appearing-one”’ [gwe’da’e’ nyaya’dode’’ or nya-niya’do-de-’]. 

The red bird has a third name, dja’hgwiyo’, and is sometimes called dja’hgwi- 
yo’go-wa’, the suffix meaning “great.’”’ He also belongs to the Little Water 
Company. 

Hemlocks-lying-down knows of three Dew Eagles, but denies that 
they rate according to altitude: a red-appearing one (gwe’da’¢’nya- 
ya’do-d¢’), a blue-appearing one (djinyo’wai’nyaya’do-de¢’), and a white 
one, as above; and he has heard of a brown-appearing one (0’g¢’¢ 
nyaya’do-de’). 

SRE denies the reality of the blue one. 

A third informant, Snorer (August 1934) names the Dew Eagles a 
bit differently and includes a blue one. 

Having left the medicine animals of the ground, in going aloft above the earth 
Dew Eagle is the first of the birds. They are of several colors: a brown one; one 
like a hen hawk [swe’gida’ge’-a-’]; a black and white one (but one does not seek 
him for a charm animal); the great red one [dja’hgwiyo’go-wa.’]; a blue one; and 
a white one [gano’’gwiyo’ge:i’]. 

At Tonawanda, Hair-singed-off and Lightning, a sachem and a 
matron of Snipe Clan, spoke of another bird called gwiyo’ge’’. 
Chauncey Warrior at Allegany had given it as the name of a summer 
constellation and had mistakenly called it “‘loon.’’ This constellation 
was observed on July 31, 1933, at 9:45 p. m. at altitude approxi- 
mately 45° east, and declination approximately 65° north of the 
Equator. The Relation of 1660 mentions the constellation of the 
Eagle in connection with a comet visible at Montreal between January 
and March (Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 46, p. 205), but the two are 
probably not identical. Hair-singed-off claims that gwiyo’ge’ i’ flies 
at night, and his meat is in the Little Water Medicine. He told a tale 
of how it destroyed a snake that was climbing to a flicker’s nest. 

All these birds are seldom seen because they are secluded from 
sight. Lightning thought that a pure man might see some of these 
birds: “One who never goes out, one about whom one hears nothing 
evil, probably a virgin, but anyway such is usually a single male 
who has gone into seclusion to become cleansed.” 

He-strikes-the-rushes had heard of gwiyo’ge’ ‘i’, the mythical night- 
flying bird of the Eagle family for whom the constellation is named 
gwiyo’gel’ gadji’’, “‘loon flying.””’ He remembers that Converse was 
notably poor at writing down Seneca when she worked with his 


116 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156 


father years ago at Newtown. Her “ga-do-jih”®” is “black feather” 
(ga’’dadji’), any bird whose feathers are black. I have had this 
from other informants as the totemite for the Heron clan. Her 
sa-go-da-oh is not recognized by my informant. 

Big Crow or Raven (gah’ga’go-wa’’) is in continual flight across 
the earth as messenger (hadja’swas) for all the birds. He is not a 
vulture, but a great common crow, who like his miniature fellows 
hesitates in flight and cries out whenever he discovers any carrion 
lying there (’tgaya’swaye’) or observes any strange event. The 
Great Crow notifies Dew Eagle whenever the people are meeting. 
“He gathers up all the birds and animals belonging to the Medicine 
Company. He is headman of the whole Medicine Company” (SRE). 
Wood-eater considers him “a tremendous crow,” messenger for all 
the birds, “‘who flies continuously back and forth above the clouds,” 
and he deems ridiculous He-strikes-the-rushes’ notion that it flies 
above the trees. Hemlocks-lying-down agrees. Accordingly, in the 
earthly ritual when the host chooses a headman, he expects him to 
act first as messenger (hadja’swas) and then “take charge” (has- 
de‘i’sdg’)—conduct the meeting. 

Big Crow comes in for special mention in prayers. Wood-eater 
says, “Big Crow should be mentioned in putting tobacco for the 
Society of charm animals, the Eagle Dance, and the Little Water 
Medicine of which he is the head one.” 

Wood-eater jokingly adds: “Snorer is Big Crow or head singer 
for the Little Water Company; may be he is the second one, whom 
He-strikes-the-rushes referred to as flying above the trees.” This 
jibe at his rival is quite apt because Snorer lives at “high bank,”’ 
above the Allegheny River, which the local Seneca amusedly call 
the sky place (ge’oya’geh) or ‘‘heaven.” 

The members of the Medicine Company, therefore, behave like 
crows. When the Seneca speak of the cooking preparatory to a 
feast or a dance of one of the Medicine Company’s orders going on 
over yonder at the next house, they say ’tgaya’:sho’, literally “they 
are preparing carrion,” and the feast is set on the ground to sym- 
bolize a fallen animal (’tgaya’swaye’). Likewise, the members sim- 
ulate the behavior of crows, and bite at the meat, and ‘‘they dip 
their bills in the soup.” Finally, at the end of the meeting, “they 
scatter and fly wherever they are wont to frequent,” as if the men 
transformed themselves into birds and flew off in the night, when 
actually they pick up their pails and depart. The sponsor puts up 
a feast for the scavengers who possess the power of carrying off his 
disease or ailments. 

37 Converse and Parker, 1908, p. 69. A manuscript, written by Mrs. Converse, now in the files of the New 


York State Museum at Albany, differs slightly from Parker’s edition ofher work. It mentions “‘gahdahjih” 
as chief of all the eagles, and that “‘shadahgeaah,”’ the blue eagle, is his helper. 


Fanon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 117 


All these mythical birds rank above their smaller earthly coun- 
terparts. Bald Eagle (do’nyonda’) is the totemite of all the Iroquois. 
The eagle perches atop the great tree of peace which is symbolic of 
the Confederacy. Warriors seek his feathers for their headdress. 
The revolving feather, like the totemite which it represents, looks in 
all directions, protecting the wearer. So Yankee Spring explained 
the relation of his people to Bald Eagle: 

The Eagle is the symbol of the Confederacy. 

The Iroquois, or the Five Nations, began as separate entities and became 
known as such when they formed the League. When they learned the great 
mutual law [gayaneshi’’go-wa-’], the Creator told the people a way by which 
they might know each other. It should be by wearing of an eagle feather, be- 
cause that bird was a far-seeing bird, and the Creator wanted his people to be 
far-seeing. 

The great mutual law was designed for the future. It did not rest upon the 
past. The Creator chose the eagle feather by which they might recognize each 
other in the future. He chose the eagle as the totem of the Iroquois as a people, 
and he ordained that collectively the Five Nations should belong to one clan, 
that of the Eagle, which is called variously: oswe’giida’ge’’a’’,?8 oshada’ge’-a”’, 
“Dew Eagle,” or do’nyonda’, ‘Bald Eagle.” 

One feather he deemed enough for his people’s headdress. In ceremonies 
they added to the single large whirling eagle feather by wearing a cap which had 
at the forehead a cluster of split feathers from which the quills had been removed. 
The one feather is worn as nearly straight up as possible. There was never any 
coup system. The feather was merely a means of recognition, a symbol of 
membership in the League. [Pl. 18.] 


DREAM EXPERIENCES 


Dreams have provided the rationale for Iroquois ceremonialism 
during 300 years. The Huron of Canada were pictured as pre- 
occupied with traumatic experiences by Champlain and the Jesuit 
writers to whom we are indebted for the finest descriptions of the 
Troquoian tribes. Dreams to the Huron had all the significance of the 
vision quest by fasting among the Central Algonquians. The Huron, 
moreover, consulted clairvoyants, persons reputed to be gifted at 
divining dreams and prescribing the proper ceremony to relieve cer- 
tain kinds of sickness. Whole villages met at midwinter to guess 
dreams and pay the forfeits which custom prescribed for particular 
dreams. The whole Feast of Fools, so-called in the Jesuit Relations, 
has evolved from a random series of dream fulfillments to an organ- 
ized Midwinter Festival by a gradual standardization of forms which 
differ according to locality (Fenton, 1937, p. 229; 1936b, p.5; 1951; 
Jesuit Relations, vol. 10, pp. 183, 185 ff., 209 ff.; vol. 22, p. 227; vol. 
39, p. 21; vol. 54, p. 101; vol. 42, pp. 154-169; Lafitau, 1724, vol. 2, 
pp. 81-84). 


38 SRE says this is Hen Hawk or Sharp-shinned Hawk, totemite of the Hawk clan. 


118 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


Bressani’s Relation of 1653, concerning the Huron, says that clair- 
voyants, in order to reveal the motivations for dreams, consult their 
familiars (Oki). 

They said they had this vision and virtue from an Oki—that is, from a powerful 
genie dwelling in them, which had appeared to them in a dream, or in watching, 
in the form of an eagle, or raven, or some other like animal. 

The diviner determined what tutelary was involved by water scrying, 
or by the kind of hysteria possessing the patient, or he himself went 
into seclusion; and the patient paid in presents (Jesuit Relations, vol. 
39, p. 21). 

The Relation of 1642 tells how a Christianized Algonquin’s strong 
faith prevented his return to paganism following a dream. 

He saw, in a dream, a person who said to him, “‘Prepare an eat-all feast; if thou 
wilt be cured, put Eagle’s feathers on thy body, in the manner that I shall tell 
thee; thou art a dead man if thou dost not obey. Above all, pray no more; it is 
prayer that has made thee ill.” 

The savages have no stronger belief than in dreams,... [but this fellow would 
not return to paganism]. [Jesuit Relations, vol. 22, p. 227.] 


The extensive literature on the Iroquoian and neighboring tribes 
presents case after case of such behavior following dreams. Here a 
great chief, Cornplanter, relinquishes his title following a dream, and 
at another place his previously unimportant half-brother, Handsome 
Lake, during a long illness receives several epoch-making dreams which 
change the whole life of his people, and perpetuate elements of the old 
religion down to the present (Morgan, 1901, vol. 1, p. 205; Parker, 
1913 a, pp. 14 ff.; Deardorff, 1951). 

So today an Iroquois Indian joins a particular medicine society 
after a dream or following a sickness because a clairvoyant has pre- 
scribed the ritual of a particular society for his cure. He automat- 
ically joins just those societies, and is afterward duty bound to sponsor 
any combination of rituals that have assisted his recovery (Fenton, 
1937, p. 226; 1936 b, p. 17; 1941 a). 

Dreams, as we shall see from the following experiences of Seneca 
informants, are couched in cultural terms and reflect personal knowl- 
edge of and acquaintance with the oral literature of the ceremonies. 
In general, erudite informants like Wood-eater and He-strikes-the- 
rushes, the son of a Handsome Lake preacher, had rich dream expe- 
riences. I find a consistency between what they know and the content 
of their dreams. Their dreams, possibly, have been elaborated during 
subsequent rationalization, but the two informants have consistently 
adhered to the main facts when spontaneously repeating the dreams 
to me at intervals of 2 years. Another thing I notice is a change in 
dream content which parallels changes in the ritual. Among the 
Seneca of Allegany and Cattaraugus, dreams of a pig head are frequent, 


Fanron] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 119 


but at Tonawanda and Onondaga, where chickens are boiled for the 
feast. they dream of chickens. Almost no one dreams of eagles, 
which no modern Seneca has trapped. Classic Iroquois matrilineal 
reckoning, moreover, has affected dream life; and dreams may involve 
a whole maternal family, the descendants through females, of a certain 
woman; and dreams sometimes select a particular person in the oppo- 
site moiety who, during his lifetime, stands in a special relationship 
of “friend” to the dreamer. Thus even social organization creeps into 
dreams. 

Dreams indicating membership in a particular medicine society do 
not have to be experiences of the beneficiary. Someone dreams some- 
thing good about someone else, and they become lifelong friends, 
celebrating their friendship with annual rites of reunion. This was 
Wood-eater’s explanation for the beginning of the Eagle Medicine 
Society. 


THE FIRST DREAM 


The first time a little boy got sick and no one could cure him. Meanwhile his 
mother had a dream that her son should prepare: First, tobacco; second, he should 
secure the head of some game animal; and third, he should have soup prepared 
for the Dew Eagles.*? 

In this dream, the Dew Eagle taught the woman the songs; that is why they 
have used the same songs ever since the beginning. 

After the boy had this meeting and put up the feast, he was able to get out of 
bed and walk about without having to use any medicine. Later his mother had 
another meeting for him. That is why we put up anniversary feasts. 

The bird did not say anything about having things on opposite sides [moiety 
functions], but the people put this in afterward. 

The tobacco, the songs, the dances, and the feast are in honor of the bird. 

The speeches are made to the man who is the host. 

Poking fun has no relation to these, but was added by those people who divided 
things according to moieties. 


WOOD-EATER JOINS EAGLE SOCIETY 


Years ago, when Wood-eater was much younger, he was sick for 
nearly a year. It seemed as if something were continually clutching 
him by the shoulders. His arms were nearly paralyzed. They pained 
terribly. 


And then pretty soon I go to sleep one night. While I am asleep I saw a huge 
red bird [dja’hgwiyo’go-wa.’] come alight on the ground nearby. It laid down 
and transformed itself into a man who approached me. The man had a red face 
and a hooked beak instead of a nose. He said, ‘‘You are pretty sick and I can 
help you. Your old people, who are all dead, used to put up the Eagle Dance, 
and you should do the same for yourself. Then later, if you have children, you 
must put it up for them.” 


39 Note the “‘contract’’ theory whereby in return for certain things—tobacco, corn soup, or mush—which 
man has, spirits agree to bestow blessings and remove diseases (Radin, 1923, pp. 279, 289). 


120 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


Then he transformed himself back into a bird and flew up into the heav 
and disappeared. 

After that they put up Eagle Dance for me and the clutching sensation disap- 
peared from my shoulders. I recovered. And this is why I still put it up; and 
this is why I have it yearly with my boy. 


WHAT DJIDO/GWAS DREAMED 


Djidg’gwas, a Seneca of the Wolf Clan, who was born in 1861 at 
Coldspring, customarily relates his experiences and folktales in the 
form of a dialogue. He lived with his mother who was quite advanced 
in years when she bore him. It seems that when he was young, he 
was very sick. 


I had been down sick for three weeks. My throat was swollen so that it was 
nearly closed, and I could only drink the Indian medicines which my mother 
prepared for me from the herbs which she gathered. I did not get better. Some- 
times at night I would hear my mother crying. She thought I was going to die. 

I said, ‘Don’t cry, mother, it’s no use. If I am going to die, you can’t stop 
it; I can’t stop it; nothing can stop it.” 4° Then she would cry more, and I 
would say, ““Don’t ery, mother.” 

At first they gave me the Small Dose Medicine, and after that I was confined 
4 days, they let it go [with the ceremony of release]. Then a week passed. I 
still lay sick. 

Now during the second week while I lay sick, one night I was asleep. Some- 
one came to the door and entered. It was a man, but be was visible only from 
the waist down. I could not see his face. In one hand he carried a bundle. At 
one open end I could see fine feathers like the tufts on the feather fans where 
they stuck out of the bundle. He said twice, ‘This is here, if you wantit. This 
is here, if you want it.”” Then he left. 

The next day I told my mother. [Here he related the whole incident, repeating 
the conversation with his mother.] 

Mother said, “He must mean that you want gane’’gwii’e:’ [Eagle Dance].”’ 

My mother prepared hulled-corn soup and she bought the head of a pig which 
she boiled in the soup. That night a great crowd of people came to our house 
for the meeting. They made long speeches, hoping that I would get well. 

Finally one day I got up. I staggered like a drunken man. My mother helped 
me by the shoulder. I was very hungry. I said, ““Mother, I am hungry.” 

She said, ‘‘All right.” 

I said, “I am very hungry and I will try to eat something. Now you fix what- 
ever there is.” Isat down at the table and she set before me whatever there was 
in the house. And I commenced trying to eat. 

Oh, the food stuck to the insides of my cheeks! They seemed stiff. I leaned 
over the table trying to eat. I swallowed hard. Presently, I heard a noise, Zuk, 
Zuk, Zuk, Zuk! [a sound which he made with distended lips, as if he were pointing 
at something]. It sounded like dripping. I looked down. It was dripping down 
my front, between my thighs, and onto the floor. 

“‘Mother,”’ I cried, ‘get the wash dish and put water init. It has broken, the 
swelling beneath my chin has let go.” 

You see that scar? [He tilted his head back, raising his chin and protruding 
his lower lip so I could observe the scar which the eruption had left beneath his 


‘0 The old Senecas believe that death is predestined. 


Fanvon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 121 


chin.] My mother placed the wash dish on the floor. The matter ran into the 
dish and filled it nearly full. Then I got better. 

Yes, I have belonged to the Eagle Dance many years, and sometimes I burn 
tobacco before the meetings. 


TEN-MORNINGS BECOMES A MEMBER, BY DJIDO’GWAS 


The question had arisen from my notes and the testimony of my 
interpreter, Clara Redeye, in 1934, whether several men who par- 
ticipated in the anniversary rite for Resting-sky are members of the 
Society. The problem also came up whether membership is a pre- 
requisite for speaking at EHagle Dance meetings. After djido’gwas 
had related so graphically his own experience, I asked him about his 
friend Ten-mornings. 

Ten-mornings, whom we call da’hdot [Bear Clan], belongs to the Eagle Society. 
Once in a while he has a meeting over at his place. He once told me how he joined. 
Da’hdot was very sick. They thought he would die. He had no feeling in his 
body or his legs. He dreamed of a meeting of the Eagle Society. Someone was 
speaking. He said, ‘‘Da’hdot will get well if they hold gane’’gwi’e-’ for him.’ 

Da’hdot related this dream to his mother, his wife, and his stepfather. The 
stepfather talked about it. He said that the dream must mean that they should 
put up an Eagle Dance for da’hdot. The stepfather and the mother prepared 
hulled-corn soup, and they got a head from a pig. Many people came to the 
meeting. They hoped that da’hdot would get better. 

Two days later, da’hdot had recovered sufficiently to get drunk. He went 
about shouting, “I am well again; they had Eagle Dance for me. I feel fine.’’ 

The question of William Cooper’s membership had also arisen and 
my interpreter was not sure whether he belonged. I have not had 
an opportunity to question him, and such personal information comes 
to the ethnologist only in bursts of confidence. Djido’gwas is not 
sure whether William Cooper belongs to the Society, but he sometimes 
has meetings, so he must be a member. Hemlocks-lying-down an 
hour later confirmed djidg’gwas’ feeling that membership is not an 
important prerequisite for speaking, stating emphatically that mem- 
bership is not required in order to speak. ‘‘Anyone at Coldspring 
speaks at Eagle Dance meetings.” Nevertheless, all the speakers 
whom I have heard have on investigation proved to be members. 


THOSE WHO HAVE INHERITED 


The Eagle sickness runs in certain families from generation to gen- 
eration. ‘This amounts practically to inheritance of the Society by 
the children of parents who have failed to sponsor the ritual. Among 
the Seneca, when the children of believing parents display the symp- 
toms of ailments which the tutelaries of particular medicine societies 
are believed to cause, the old people say that the children are afflicted 
by the negligence of their parents. This faith plus the ever-present 
Iroquois preoccupation with traumatic experience insures the perpet- 


122 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLu. 156 


uation of the medicine societies from generation to generation. A 
child may inherit his associations from either side of the house. How- 
ever, some dreams require the participation of a whole maternal family. 

Hemlocks-lying-down does not recall when he joined the Eagle 
Society. It is so long ago he cannot remember. 

The trouble is that the old people do not put up their societies very often and 
therefore it goes right in his family; when I don’t put up my societies, ’ie-i’do-s 
and Eagle Dance, as I didn’t, so Great-night, my son, got sick. Great-night put 
up both of them, and now he is all right. Likewise, my father and mother did 
not have meetings for their societies and I got sick. ‘The sickness follows in the 
family. They say my legs were cramped and bent. I could not straighten them. 

Hemlocks-lying-down did not recall what clairvoyant his parents 
consulted. 

According to Corn-husker’s wife (Bear Clan), in whose house I 
boarded one summer, her husband Corn-husker (Hawk Clan) and 
three of his children, two older sons and a daughter, belonged to the 
Eagle Society. She and the two younger children, a girl and a boy 
of 14, were not members. Years ago Corn-husker’s father (Wolf Clan) 
dreamed that he and his son should put up the dance together. Corn- 
husker has kept it up. Similarly, in the following generation, Corn- 
husker dreamed that Eagle Dance would help his second son who was 
always sickly, and so Corn-husker and his son have it together now 
like Corn-husker and his father before him. The oldest son was sick 
and dreamed that the Eagle Dance would help him, and the daughter 
had a similar dream. His wife has little faith in these things, and, 
interestingly enough, the two younger children have not revealed any 
dreams. 

Wood-eater (Bear Clan) has Eagle Dance with his son, SRE (Snipe 
Clan). 

The father and children in both instances are of different moieties, 
but Corn-husker’s wife and Hemlocks-lying-down concur that a father 
may have a ritual with his sons regardless of moiety membership. 

An example of a dream which involves participation of a whole ma- 
ternal family in a medicine society is that of She-gave-her-the-name 
and all her daughters and their children of the Bear Clan at Coldspring, 
who sponsor the Bear Dance together; but their clanship may have no 
connection with the name of the society. Ha’nodje‘ne’s (Snipe Clan), 
who acted as conductor for Resting-sky’s meeting, belongs to Eagle 
Society and sponsors a joint annual meeting with all surviving de- 
scendants of his mother’s father, all Snipes. My informant, Hem- 
locks-lying-down, at first said that this meeting was for the whole clan, 
but then corrected himself by saying he meant that only the maternal 
family have been carrying it on ever since the old grandfather, and 


FanTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 123 


he stated that this meeting does not include SRE and his half brothers, 
children of another maternal family in the same clan. 


CEREMONIAL FRIENDS 


Ceremonial friends are principals in s supplementary or substitutive 
relationship that is cemented by common association in a ceremony 
which has been revealed in a dream or prescribed by a clairvoyant. 
One party is ill and requires the bond with a healthy person, or per- 
haps he needs the interpersonal relationships which have been denied 
him in a broken family; and the actual ties of blood relationship be- 
tween him and his correspondent seem unimportant. Friendship 
operates on the principle, common among exotic peoples—particularly 
the Iroquois—of projecting everyone into some situation of real or 
fictitious relationship to one’s self and others. Not only do the Iro- 
quois rigorously apply their kinship system within the tribes of the 
Confederacy, but the principle of extending kin ties classes clansmen 
of member tribes as siblings; and in council the sachems of the confeder- 
ated tribes call each other older-brother and younger-brother nations 
respectively, dividing themselves into two moieties, and they use 
remoter relationship terms, such as nephews, for the subjected Dela- 
ware, over whom they exercised an avuncular authority, and ‘‘children 
of our father’s brothers’’ for the Chippewa (Jackson, 1830, p.8). Use 
of the terms predicates behaving as if the implied relationships were 
real. The principle of fictitious kinship underlies adoption; it is at 
work in the concept of ceremonial friends; it is projected to the tribal 
level in the Confederacy; treaties confirmed by wampum belts make 
kindred of contracting parties; and father-son and uncle-nephew 
relationships unite tribes participating in the widespread Calumet 
Dance. 

Among the Seneca, ceremonial friends may be of the same genera- 
tion, sex, and moiety, but friendships are usually arranged between a 
child and an older person of the other moiety—preferably his father’s 
clansman. The pattern seems to be this: A child is sick. Either 
the child dreams of another person, or someone else reveals a dream 
about the child and himself or involving the child with another person. 
The parents consult a clairvoyant, who divines that the child needs a 
friend, who is sometimes named, The parents seek the friend and 
pay him tobacco. The ceremony is confirmed with an exchange of 
presents. Often the older person presents the child with a talisman— 
a miniature object—symbolic of their association which must be re- 
newed annually. The custom of presenting miniature talismen de- 
rives from the old Huron-Iroquois custom of dream guessing and 
celebrating the revealed rites at the Midwinter Festival. 

982306—53——9 


124 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156 


Hemlocks-lying-down (Turtle Clan) frequently conducts Eagle So- 
ciety meetings, but he has no “friends” through the Society. How- 
ever, he has a friend in the Bear Dance Society. . . . 

The little girl next door [in the Beaver Clan] was sick. She fell and nearly 
broke her arm. She could not move. Her mother dreamed that she had to have 
a friend, an old man. [The girl’s father does not live with the family.] So they 
asked me, would I be her friend, and I thought I better do it. We put up the 
ceremony of the Bear Society and the next day her arm was all right. 


Clara Redeye, my first Seneca interpreter at Coldspring, said that 
a boy would ask his grandmothers to interpret his dreams. Then 
the boy’s mother or father would notify the father’s clansman to 
make the boy a suitable miniature object: a lacrosse stick, a canoe, 
bow and arrow, a wooden mask, or a husk mask—something symbolic 
of the dream and the prescribed ceremony. He makes it and presents 
it to the boy at the ceremony. Thus a companionship grows up 
between tbe boy and his father’s clansman. 

A boy or a little girl may be sick at the time, or any sick person may have 
such a dream. The parents or old folks [grandparents] will ask that person to 
to be the friend. Older people sometimes dream of younger people. The 
clan does not matter. A ceremony is held to make them friends and presents 
are exchanged. They are true relations after this: the boy calls the man his 
friend (hononde’’yo’); if a man dreams of a woman the same term is used, and 
it also holds for a girl and a woman. Most of the dreams are on the part of 
little children with older people as the dream subjects. 


Neither Wood-eater nor his son’s wife ever had this ceremony. 
The ceremony or dream rite for friends (ade’osh&’) is held at the 
child’s parent’s house. It may resemble a social dance, but the 
older person is supposed to offer a present for the child. 

My sister, Leaf-blowing-down [Hawk Clan] had one with gaweni’’de’ [Turtle 
Clan]. [They are both of the same generation, but of opposite moieties; they 
are close friends and constant visitors at each other’s homes. The former’s 
husband’s younger brother, Days-old, married the latter’s younger sister.] 
When the rite is held for two women, pieces of cloth are exchanged; a boy and a 
man give each other white shirts. The exchange of presents cures the sick child. 
They are supposed to renew this annually, but they usually do not. 


If a child is sick and thinks of a certain man, or dreams of him, 
the mother may call in the man to give medicines. Corn-husker’s 
wife (Bear Clan) called in O’pi (Heron Clan) when her son was down 
with pneumonia, because he asked to see him. O’pi prepared herbal 
medicines which cured the boy. 

F. W. Waugh recorded a ceremony of friendship while at Tona- 
wanda on an ethnobotanical field trip in 1912. According to his 
informant, Peter Sundown, the medicine dance was held at Louisa 
Ground’s house for a little boy named Moses Bull, who was then 4 
years old, and Twenty-kettles, who had been secured for the friend. 


~ 7 


FenTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 125 


The ritual consisted of an invocation, the peach-stone game, in which 
the women defeated the men, the Eagle Dance, the rite of Personal 
Chant, Fish Dance, a social dance, and an exchange of presents. 
The feast was beef soup with hominy and was distributed at the end. 
Peter Sundown received a white-bosom shirt when he went through 
the friendship ceremony. In 1934, with Twenty-kettles as informant, 
I supplemented Waugh’s notes on this ceremony, partly in text. 


Moses Bull was pretty sick, but three or four days after the ceremony of friend- 
ship and singing of Personal Chant he felt pretty good. He is alive today (?). 

The ceremony of friendship is called a’de’wishe’, hononde’’9’, or ogya’tcih. 

Moses was pretty sick and his mother used medicines and they did not seem 
to help him. She went to a woman fortune teller [yene’-ye’o] to consult her. 
The clairvoyant said, ‘‘He wants his friend.”” So the old lady and the boy’s 
father commenced hunting around for a friend for their sick child. I was here 
at home that night. The parents came to me saying, “I want a friend for 
my little boy.”” When the father told me that, he gave me Indian tobacco. 
It is just the same as when I go to gather herbal medicines. I take along Indian 
tobacco and make offerings to the plants I take. Likewise, they gave me tobacco 
because they wanted me. 

When I went to his house, his mother asked me what kind of dances I wanted. 
The father suggested Personal Chant, and I agreed. 

William Poudry the headman made an address, giving thanks to all the spirit- 
forces, and then he addressed the little boy’s friend, Twenty-kettles. He told 
all those present that the purpose of this meeting was to cement a friendship 
between this little boy and his father’s friend. 

Then he put tobacco in the fire for Twenty-kettles and Moses Bull, the two 
friends. [Twenty-kettles did not hear the words of the invocation. However 
he should make the same kind of an invocation as one uses when going out after 
medicines. Then one tells the medicines what they are to be used to cure and 
the name of the person whom they must help.] 

Before the Personal Chant singing, they sang the Eagle Dance. In Personal 
Chant every one sang to bind the friendship. 

When we finished with the Personal Chant, he [Moses Bull] gave me 4 yards 
of cotton sheeting to bind my friendship. Long ago they used to give buckskin 
in these rituals. 

This was thirty years ago. Sometimes I sing Personal Chant in the longhouse 
for Moses Bull. Sometimes at the New Year’s dance I sing Personal Chant for 
my friend. 


He-strikes-the-rushes, my interpreter, commented: 


The boy has a friend who is an older person. He must help the child to grow 
up to be a man. He must advise the boy, acting as his counsellor. Twenty- 
kettles is of the Hawk Clan. Moses Bull’s father was of the Wolf Clan. He 
had approached a friend of the other moiety to be a friend of his son, who was of 
the Turtle Clan. Twenty-kettles says that a man and his friend would be of 
opposite sides [moieties]: ‘‘My friend is on the other side. When one is ill, 
they choose a friend for him from the other side.” 

It is believed that the ceremony of making friends merges the relatives of the 
two principals into one kindred unit: The relatives of the man are linked with 
the relatives of the child. 

The older man must act as an example to his junior friend. The older man’s 


126 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


conduct shall be observed by the younger boy who considers the older friend a 
model of behavior. The Creator has ordained that these two be friends and it 
is hoped the younger one will grow up to be the fine man his older partner is 
supposed to be. Whatever he observes the older man doing, he shall do it. 
The old man bears the onus of the child’s future. As a reward he will see the 
Creator when he dies. 

When the two meet on the road, the older person speaks first. ‘‘Thanks you 
are well my friend? [ni’a’we ske-ng’ gyade’gh].”’ The younger one answers, ‘““Truly 
thank you I am well my friend [dog¢’:s nia-weh ske-ng’ gyade’gh].’’ Every time 
he sees me, he calls me ‘‘friend (gyade’gh).” 


HELPER AND HE-IS-COMING 


Likewise, Helper, sachem chief of the Bear Clan, an old man of 70, 
has a young friend, He-is-coming, of the Snipe Clan, in the other 
moiety. Helper narrated his experience in joining the Eagle Society. 


I pretty near die one time. I sleep. Then I wake, then it seems as if I sleep 
again. I see people sitting around. Among them was a large woman wearing a 
wide-brimmed straw hat and she was beating on a pan of ashes with a stick as if 
she were singing. She is the one who told me to put up the Eagle Dance. 

He had been sick, the boy whom we call He-is-coming; he was little then, and 
he had a bad stepfather who licked him all the time. And the boy would cry 
all the time. And he thinks he is going to die. Now his mother, Lightning, felt 
sorry for him, and she consulted the old Pagan people around the Longhouse and 
they said she had better get someone to be his friend, maybe. Well, Lightning 
came to me saying, “I want someone to be a friend for my boy.’’ [Helper is Bear 
Clan, and He-is-coming and his mother are Snipes in the opposite moiety.] Light- 
ning said that she used to belong to the Pagans and I say, “‘all right.”” But I add 
that I do not want to go to the Eagle Dance for fear that I might become sick with 
the illness that the Eagle causes. 

The old people had told me that one who does not belong to the Eagle Dance 
will become sick if he passes the dancers performing that dance on a floor. So I 
told Lightning that I don’t want to celebrate our friendship with that ritual which 
would help her boy, but I will make a friend with gad%¢’’geka~’ [the Bowl Game]. 

In about two weeks I wassick. Icannot getup. Iamstiffallthe time. Some- 
times I do not know who of my people comes to see me, I do not know them when 
they look me in the face. I am asleep some of the time. Then I see that old 
woman wearing the big straw hat and beating a pan of ashes with astick. ‘You 
look outside,’’ she says, and I look out and see my chickens lined up from the door 
to beyond the jog in the corner of the house.‘! The first chicken has no head. 
It is cut off and is hanging, but the blood is spitting from its mouth. I look way 
back beyond the chickens and there stands my friend, that boy named He-is- 
coming, and he is laughing and looking at me. 

Right away I told them; and afterward I learned that they put up a dance for 
me at night. I don’t know but they tellme. He-is-coming and I have it together 
now.” 


He-is-coming has heard his mother, Lightning, say that she went to 
Buffalo to consult some woman whom the Tonawanda people recom- 


41 Chickens, instead of pork, are the principal feast at Tonawanda. 
43 See p. 54 for an account of their anniversary ceremony during February 1935. 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 127 


mended. “This Indian woman told Lightning that I should have a 
friend.” 

From the same source it was learned that when Awl-breaker, 
Messenger Chief of the Wolf Clan at Tonawanda, was small, he was 
sick. His old people went to a fortuneteller and she prescribed the 
Eagle Dance. They put up the Eagle Dance ritual and he forgot 
about being sick. That old lady and her daughter were Oneidas from 
Green Bay, Wis.** 


THE DREAM AND DELIRIUM OF HE-STRIKES-THE-RUSHES 


IT don’t think the Eagle Dance and all its equipment were ever used outside of 
the Ceremony itself. In fact the common Eagle is not the one that has the dance— 
it is the Dew Eagle—a mythical eagle supposed to soar among the mists and clouds 
but never below. Hence his name, o’shada’ge’:a-’, “mist dweller” or Dew Eagle. 
Dew Eagle is supposed only to be seen in dreams when the patient is being 
afflicted by their power for the purpose of putting on the Eagle Dance. I have 
seen it myself in a dream, or rather in delirium condition, when a small boy. To 
me they appear to be enormous birds—pure white, and they had fresh blood on 
their beaks. Oh yes, you have to be an Indian to be and see all we see. 

When I was a little child, I was very sick. It was warm weather and I lay in 
bed. Everytime I dozed off to sleep I would see large white birds on the ground 
flapping their wings. ‘They seemed to have blood on their faces. 

In my waking moments, as I gazed up, the ceiling seemed to approach my face 
and stick to it. I was unable to shake it off. I felt as if a great weight were 
pressing down upon my head. Then again as I came out of it, I called my mother. 
She approached the bed where I lay, leaving her work about the stove. Her face 
appeared distorted and it seemed to come up close to mine and stay there as I 
stared at her spellbound. 

A clairvoyant interpreted this short-focused vision and delirium, supplemented 
by my dreams, as symptoms of the sickness which the eagles cause. 


Two years later, I recounted to this informant Helper’s account of 
joining the Eagle Society, which prompted him to retell his experience. 


Second version: 


I remember a time back in the old homestead in Newtown. I must have been 
still in swaddlings for I remember being slung in a hammock across the corner of 
the room. (The people spread two wires with two sticks and they fasten the 
wires together at the ends and wrap the wires in blankets. This is an old Seneca 
contraption.) Now I was very sick. There was a knot in the ceiling above me 
and I kept staring at it. My head seemed to swell and the ceiling came down 
toward my face. I cried and my mother came to me and her face was distorted 
and seemed to tremble and her eyes bulged out. She leaned over me and her 
face came down close to mine until I cried. She, only knowing that I was fretful, 
went to a clairvoyant who recommended that they put up the Eagle Dance for me. 

Meanwhile I slept intermittently and I kept dreaming of seeing great white 


43 All that apparently survives of Eagle Dance among the Oneida of Green Bay is the custom at certain 
curing feasts of pounding on the wall with a stick and then scattering candy and peanuts which precipitates 
@ general scramble. But the word for it, guwanle’ gwala’eks, ‘‘they throw club,” is clearly cognate with 
gane’gwa’’e-’, the Onondaga name of Eagle Dance (Ritzenthaler, 1950, p. 38). 


128 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Buut. 156 


birds on the ground outside the house and their heads and necks were splattered 
with blood. 

The clairvoyant told my mother that the cause of my sickness was my father’s 
failure to put up the Eagle Dance. He had let it go by several years. I had got it 
from him. 

Some years later and I had grown up and I was swinging my sister’s hammock 
which was hung in the same corner. I looked up and saw the knot in the ceiling. 
Calling my mother, I recounted my experience as a sick infant, how I had seen the 
great white birds splattered with blood on the ground outside, and she told me then 
that I belonged to the Eagle Society, how she had gone to the clairvoyant who 
diagnosed the Eagle as wanting me because my father had neglected to put up a 
feast. I was perhaps fifteen when I learned this. 

Dreaming that one hears the songs of the Eagle Dance, in the distance, indicates 
the sickness is caused by that bird. 

Clairvoyants are consulted because they are people reputed to know the omens 
indicating membership in particular societies. They know what types of dreams 
reveal a need for membership in the Eagle Society. 

They usually recommend the Eagle Dance, and if it succeeds, well and good, but 
if not, they may suggest ’ie’i-’'do-s, which has nearly the same symptoms. 

My father and I had an Eagle Dance bundle and a striped pole (ge’odo+t). 
When we were ready to have a meeting, we called in sang’’gai-s (he-has-long-horns) 
of the Deer Clan to be the runner (hadja’swas) and conductor (hasde’i-sta’), 
because he was of the other phratry from my father. He took the pole and stood 
it up outside the house in the front yard. He tied the fans together end to end 
attaching them near the top of the pole, orienting the fans east and west when the 
pole was erected. He hung the rattles from the limbs of the crotch at the top of the 
pole. The striking stick is also hung up on the pole. 

The pole is striped red from lower left to upper right. The red pigment was a 
clay [ogwe’ -sha’], stained with the bark of a certain tree, the name of which is now 
lost. The pole itself is sycamore [ge’nsa], “scabs falling away.” 

When you are chosen by the Dew Eagle to be in league with him, you are given 
this pole. This is after a clairvoyant has named the Eagle Society by interpreting 
your particular dream or ailment. The pole becomes your charm and with it goes 
a striped striking stick [yene’gwa’’e-sta’ ga’’nya’] which is similarly striped and 
which also is hung with the rattles when the contents of the bundle are displayed. 


He does not say who makes the pole and beater for the novitiate. 
He does not know whether the crotch at the top of the pole is symbolic 
of the eagle’s nest. Hemlocks-lying-down said, “No, the crotch is only 
a place to hang the fans.” 


Long-horns puts tobacco when he raises the pole. He was always master of 
ceremonies when my father had meetings, because he was of the opposite phratry, 
my father being [shoshodo’ -wa-’] [Great Night] of the Wolf Clan. We [my father 
and I] held it together because my father did not live up to the requirements of the 
pact with the Dew Eagles when I was small, and I got sick. He and I had it 
together afterward. 

The old folks claim that by erecting the pole and displaying the contents of the 
bundle that [ga’hga’go-wa.’] the giant crow who is flying above the tree tops will see 
it. He is messenger [hadja’was], for the birds. He goes all over, traveling every- 
where over the face of the earth. Then he ascends above the clouds to the Dew 
Eagle [shada’ge’-a-’], because he never comes low down. He tells all the Dew 


Fanron] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 129 


Eagles, for there are a lot of them, that they, the people, have remembered us 
again: 


o-neh ai’ djokiyasha’’o ne’ yoedza’ge’ 
now once more they us have prepared a feast (carrion) they of the earth 

o-ng¢h ai’ djoki’yaswaye-ni da’ -ne’ho 

now again they for us have put up a feast (they so that’s all 


have spread carrion) 


Now once more the people of the earth have remembered us with a feast. Now again they have put 
up a feast in our honor. 


Having heard this, now the Dew Eagles will be expectant. All they will need is 
the fumes of the Indian tobacco to bear the message up to them, for them to hear 
their own songs and ritual. They have great esteem [hodiwang’’g9’—they have 
great respect] for their own songs and ceremony. This is why the performance of 
the ritual pleases them. Thus they are pleased and are then willing in return to 
help the person have good luck. 

Carrion [’tgaya’sway¢’] is the sustenance on which birds of prey—eagles, hawks, 
ravens, and buzzards—feed. The pig’s head or a bear’s head symbolizes the 
carrion. So when the members say Ga’’’ ga’-’ [high tone] they are imitating the 
birds, particularly the crows and buzzards, making all that fuss as they hover 
feasting on this carrion. 

COMMENT 


Membership —A summary of biographical experiences gives two 
general methods of joining the Eagle Society: (1) By cure, or (2) 
through a dream. The child’s parents decide that the ritual may 
help their sick child, or, the child is sick and they consult a clairvoy- 
ant. The patient may dream himself, or someone may dream that 
the ritual will help the person. 

Clairvoyants—A clairvoyant (hene’-yo’) (male), (yene’yg’) (female) 
divines dreams for a fee. Some use tea or cards, and others employ 
certain herbs and put them under their pillows on going to sleep. 
Others perform divination by water scrying. 

Sarah Snow (gadji’’dje’s) of the Bear Clan at Allegany, a much 
consulted clairvoyant (yene-yg’) and herbalist (pl. 19), prescribes the 
Eagle Dance ritual for the following illnesses: ‘‘It is good for a cough 
and high fever, 104°, this is sometimes accompanied by nervousness; 
or the patient may be afflicted by a general weakness and lassitude 
which the Eagle causes; sometimes they fever, sometimes they cough, 
and sometimes they merely have violent headaches; sometimes it 
takes the form of lumbago. The patient gets well when he puts up 
the Eagle Dance.” 

Dreams.—To have the Eagle Dance ritual, the person usually has a 
dream of a bird flying around, or of one down on the ground, or sees 
chickens. The birds frequently have blood on their faces. Then the 
clairvoyant knows the sickness is caused by the Dew Eagles. 


130 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


RITUAL EQUIPMENT 


Members of the Eagle Society are supposed to own a bundle con- 
taining two feather fans, two small gourd rattles, a single feather, a 
whistle, and a package of sacred tobacco. They also should own a 
striped pole and a striking stick. Sometimes, as in the case of He- 
strikes-the-rushes and his father, a family may possess a bundle in 
common. When not in use, the bundle is hung up near the ceiling 
or in the rafters; and the pole, if not stood carelessly in the corner, is 
carefully laid overhead on the drying racks. However, bundles are 
frequently borrowed and loaned, and sometimes an old man of the op- 
posite moiety promises to make a bundle for a young boy on the 
other side. 

The bundle (dega’hudje-nyo, or preferably ga’ho’she’ or ’ohgwai’- 
she’) has a wrapper of newspaper or flour sacking, although anciently 
it was buckskin. I am uncertain as to whether a wildcat skin was 
ever used. 

The Seneca feather fans are unlike the ordinary splayed calumet 
fans in that the feathers are invariably parallel to the handle. Each 
fan (gane’’’e’) has a wooden handle of no particular length, but is 
usually three spans of the hand and extended thumb (approximately 
18 inches). The handle is sometimes striped with red dye. Snorer 
said, ‘“‘The shaft (of ash or white hickory or soft maple) must be long 
enough for the handle to extend beyond the quills of the feathers. 
Put a string on it. There are three or four feathers, for the eagle’s 
feathers are wide. The dancer holds the fan in his left hand and the 
rattle in his right.”” Hemlocks-lying-down has a bundle containing 
two fans of four eagle feathers suspended parallel with their quills 
pointed toward the handle (pl. 20,1). 

The feathers are attached with small silver rivets to two sets of 
red ribbons which pass over the shaft and down behind the feathers. 
The attachments have been mended with thread. Tufts of small 

“ Fans and rattles exhibited in the American Museum of Natural History were made at Coldspring by 
Hemlocks-lying-down (Cat. Nos. 50/62662, b, and ¢c; also 50/5552, maker unknown). 
Harriet Maxwell Converse donated to the American Museum of Natural History a fan which appears to 


be an Eagle Dance fan but with the following legend is strongly suggestive of the calumet fan. Four fans 
are frequently used in an Eagle Dance. 


Iroquois Flag of Truce 


“This is a flag of truce. The Indians say it is about two hundred years old. The feathers are those of the 
wild goose. The little bag attached to this flag is charm medicine. This was obtained on the Cattaraugus 
Reservation from an old Iroquois woman, or rather from her son. She had four of them. The story is that 
it was used by the captives of a nation who were exterminated by the Iroquois, evidently Western people. 
The women used these after the battle. It was the custom of the Indians to mutilate the dead captives; 
but when the women appeared on the field with these flags in their hands, waving them slowly, the Indians 
let them carry back as many of the dead as they wanted, perhaps a chief. 

“The women would creep along with their little one, trembling, and the Indians never refused them their 
dead. That is, the women belonging to the captives would thus come. This was the flag of the enemy, 
but it was really a flag of truce. The bag of medicine is supposed to be a charm to prevent any disaster or 
to protect the bearer.’”’ (American Museum of Natural History, Accession Records: No. 50. 209; italics 
mine.—W.N.F.) [Caswell, 1892, p. 252.] 


FanTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 131 


feathers are wound on the shaft at the tips and the middle of the 
shafts. The orientation of the feathers suggests the Hidatsa method 
of twining the feathers of an eagle’s tail into fans to be carried home 
(Wilson, 1928, p. 170, fig. 11, b). 

The ceremonial number four is common, but upward of five or 
six feathers, half of an eagle’s tail, are also common. A bundle in 
the New York State Museum has fans of six feathers (pl. 20,2); and 
another set which I photographed while studying collections there 
in 1940 (New York State Museum Cat. No. 36876) measures 20 
inches long and features a decorated thong which is wound with dyed 
and flattened porcupine quills and tufted with red horse-tail tips, as 
were originally the ends of the four eagle feathers which depend on 
buckskin thongs to which the quill is fastened by tapering it and 
tucking in the pointed end. The barb end is knotted. The wands 
are further decorated by feathers and ribbons. Judging by the 
materials and workmanship, this set of fans may be quite early and 
possibly came from the Plains. Converse and Parker illustrated 
fans, probably from Cattaraugus, having six feathers pointed proxi- 
mally and bound with vertical ribbons; the distal ends of the 
wooden shafts are tufted, but the sticks do not appear to be striped 
(Converse and Parker, 1908, p. 73). However, a drawing, in the 
same publication, by Jesse Cornplanter, depicts four dancers facing 
each other in couples. Each dancer is holding a gourd rattle in 
his right hand and a fan of four feathers in the left hand, and the 
feathers are oriented proximally (Converse and Parker, 1908, p. 71). 
An example of five-feathered Eagle Dance fans from the Seneca comes 
from the collecting activity of S. A. Barrett at Cattaraugus for the 
Milwaukee Public Museum. I saw these specimens during a visit 
to the Museum in August 1947. They feature wooden shafts, and 
suspension by two ribbons, and a cord threaded through the quills. 
Rattles originally accompanied the fans (Milwaukee Public Museum, 
Cat. No. 24,064-5/6084; and personal correspondence, W. C. 
McKern, October 2, 1947). (Pl. 22.) 

Sometimes turkey (0’s’o'n) feathers are employed, mixed with those 
of the wild goose (o’nga‘k). A Tonawanda informant mentioned 
partridge feathers. White chicken feathers were used at Resting- 
sky’s anniversary. A Cayuga fan, which Dr. Frank G. Speck col- 
lected at Sour Springs, Ontario, has 60 osprey feathers suspended at 
intervals vertically by their quills (Speck, 1949, pl. X, A-B). The New 
York Onondaga also employ this type of fan. Some old fan handles 
are elaborately carved, and I suspect that their form was suggested 
by old shotgun cleaners. 

A small rattle (gasta’we’she’) is attached to the handle of each fan by 
a loop. It is usually a miniature gourd or pumpkin, or a tiny horn 


132 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


rattle. Tiny folded bark rattles (Parker, 1913 b, p. 124) are not now 
used at Coldspring. Hemlocks-lying-down, a careful craftsman, 
specializes in making gourd rattles. He selects a stick of dry white 
pine and whittles it down to the diameter of the cut-off gourd. He 
cuts a flange to receive the gourd, and trims the distal end of the stick 
and cuts it off where it protrudes from a hole in the end of the gourd. 
He bores a hole through the handle tip to receive a wooden cotter pin, 
which secures the gourd to the handle. Small seeds are inserted in the 
shell for percussion. Then the handle is waisted by cutting from the 
shoulder which supports the flange and from the proximal end of the 
handle both ways toward the middle. When the handle loosens, a 
few turns of string at either end of the gourd will tighten it. 

The society used to employ a whistle (ga*’genda’), which was identi- 
cal to that now used by the Little Water Company, and it was kept in 
the bundle. Eagle wing-bone whistles were formerly used during the 
sessions to renew the strength of the Little Water Medicine, but both 
He-strikes-the-rushes and Long-horns deny that such a whistle was 
used in the Eagle Dance.** Hemlocks-lying-down does not know about 
eagle wing-bone whistles, but he has added a bamboo whistle to his 
bundle since I photographed its contents in 1933. He calls it 
(gano’da’); it is 17.5 inches long, and has one hole and no stops. 
‘““Yendi has one and I have one. Someone is appointed to blow it at 
the beginning of every song.” The note is shrill and the whistle is 
blown so that it oscillates between octaves. This represents the 
eagle’s cry as it wheels in flight. ‘‘Whenever you hear it during the 
songs, that’s what it means” (collection of M. H. Deardorff, Warren, 
Pa.; personal communication, May 9, 1951). The whistle is placed 
together with other bundle contents at the invocation. 

Members provide a twined corn-husk tray filled with native tobacco 
(Nicotiana rustica L.) for the invocation and for members to smoke. 
The Seneca scatter the seed in their dooryard, and the tobacco plant 
comes up and then seeds itself from year to year. They seldom culti- 
vate it. During the middle of the summer they pick the leaves and 
thread them on strings, which are suspended above the stove until the 
tobacco dries, and then it is crumbled and put away for smoking and 
for tobacco offerings. They call it genuine tobacco (oy¢’gwa’o-we). 

The society used to employ a striking pole (gane’’gwa’e” ge’oda’) or 
crotched pole (gaya’’ihdo-t) at Coldspring. This was cut from the 
sycamore tree, and it was peeled and striped red, like the fan handle, 
but counterclockwise from lower left to upper right (pl. 21). They 
beat the pole with a striking stick (yene’gwii’e:sta’ ga’’nya’), or simply 
“stick” (ga’/’nya’) which was similarly striped. The pole was above 


43 Parker (1923, p. 255) illustrated the one having a single hole, no stops, and a cord and package of sacred 
tobacco attached. 


FEnTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 133 


the height of a man; and the beater, which was provided with a loop 
for hanging it on the forked pole, was of a convenient length. Just 
now poles have become obsolete, and canes have supplanted beaters 
at Coldspring; but at Tonawanda even the cane has gone out, and a 
speaker merely stamps his foot to stop the song. 

Snorer commented, ‘“‘There is no striking stick in War Dance; only in 
Eagle Dance. That is why in War Dance and Striking-a-stick Dance, 
frequently two or three speakers can strike at the same time. [This 
seemed amusing to him.] Each thinks he has the floor and he com- 
mences speaking.” 

The striking pole and beater, which is passed by the conductor, 
serves to regulate the sequence of speakers. The amusing dilemma of 
several speakers talking at once occurs now at Tonawanda in Eagle 
Dance where the striking stick passed by the conductor has gone out of 
use. Pounding on the wall with a stick survives among the Oneida of 
Wisconsin (Ritzenthaler, 1950, p. 38). 

The singers of the Eagle Dance employ the water drum and horn 
rattle which provide the tempo for nearly all Iroquois dance music. 
Eagle Dance requires a small high-pitched drum, but the size of the 
rattles is unimportant. The water drum is definitely old with the 
Iroquois (Potherie, 1753, vol. 3, pp. 24-25; Lafitau, 1724, vol. 1, 
p. 193; Colden, 1902, vol. 1, p. xxii; Zeisberger, 1912, p. 18). But 
references to the horn rattle appear only in the recent source material; 
and He-talks-fast, of the Beaver Clan at Coldspring, has heard that a 
cylindrical bark rattle preceded the horn rattle, which seems to be of 
western provenience. I counted a dozen water drums at Coldspring, 
made by Corn-husker, Hemlocks-lying-down, Snorer, and Clarence 
White (pl. 23). Corn-husker and Hemlocks-lying-down also make 
horn rattles. The latter always has a dozen and he hates to part with 
them, but he brings them to the singers’ meetings. Corn-husker 
seldom has any rattles. Healwayssells them. Hemlocks-lying-down 
introduced the waisted octagonal handle from Cattaraugus (pl. 24, 
a, 6). Long-horns, at Newtown, however, prefers squat thick rattles 
with shorter octagonal handles which are waisted in the middle. 
Hemlocks-lying-down dyes the heads of his horn rattles red, and his 
rattles are as unmistakable to a Seneca singer from Coldspring, Tona- 
wanda, Newtown, or even Grand River, as a genuine Stradivarius 
violin is to a violin expert. However, Corn-husker’s rattles differ little 
from the run of the mill. 

The Seneca stripe their sacred religious paraphernalia with a rare 
red pigment (’o’gwe¢’’she:). He-strikes-the-rushes mentioned it, but 
only Snorer had any knowledge of its provenience. Snorer has heard 
that it was derived from a rock (possibly hematite) which was found 
in a certain face-paint (gagwe’So’) mine. It was a powdered rock 


134 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Buun. 156 


which they used extensively, as late as a generation ago, at Cattarau- 
gus for striping fan handles, the signal pole, and the striking stick. 

Red paint, usually hematite, occurs in old Iroquois graves (Parker, 
1922, vol. 1, pp. 424-427). Harrington and Parker found red pig- 
ment in graves on the Silverheels site (ibid., p. 227). 

David Zeisberger speaks of wampum belts being smeared with red 
cinnabar as a sign of war, and states that the same pigment was used 
for dye and face paint. Men sometimes painted their whole head red, 
again half red and half black, and women painted a round red spot on 
each cheek (Zeisberger, 1910, p. 87). 

Hulbert, the editor of Zeisberger’s History of the North American 
Indians, writes: ‘‘A yellow ochre, found near Muskingum, when 
burnt, made a rich red paint, which Indians came from many miles 
to obtain. Vermilion River in Ohio derived its name from the clay 
there obtained for painting’ (Zeisberger, 1910, p. 255). Vermilion 
was a favorite item in the lists of Indian presents from the mid- 
eighteenth century (Jacobs, 1950, pp. 47-48). 

Pokeberries, bloodroot, and hemlock bark, when boiled, were also 
sources of red dye (Waugh, Ms., 1912). 


RITUAL ORGANIZATION 
SELECTING FUNCTIONARIES 


Like every other organization in Iroquois society, the Eagle Dance 
Society has administrative functionaries who are appointed for the 
occasion. Among the Seneca, the recipient (ho’d¢'s) or the sponsor 
(hod¢’Sa-ni:; hode’So’) selects a man from the other moiety to serve as 
messenger (hadja’swas) and later to conduct the ritual (hasde’1’stha’). 
The conductor is usually a near relative or perhaps a friend, and he 
should be a member. He is responsible for the ritual, appoints all 
the functionaries, and issues the invitations. The roles of sponsor and 
conductor fulfill an ancient Iroquoian custom (Thwaites, 1896-1901, 
vol. 6, p. 279; vol. 10, p. 181; vol. 23, p. 125). Erecting the pole 
and displaying bundle contents was the Seneca custom, with minor 
variations between Allegany and Cattaraugus communities. 

At Coldspring, Jonas Crouse, an old man of the Hawk Clan, remem- 
bers that his grandfather put up Eagle Dance every fall before he went 
hunting. When Twenty-canoes (Bear Clan) was a boy, he remem- 
bers that his people set up the striped signal pole before the bouse and 
attached the wands and rattles to notify the Dew Eagle that the 
people were about to address him. Later on they abandoned setting 
up the pole and merely hung the fans and rattles on the front of a 
dwelling. 

There was a special tobacco invocation for displaying the bundle, 


FEnTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 135 


and according to Long-horns (Deer Clan) at Newton, the bundle con- 
tents were sometimes displayed to bring rain. 

Chauncey Warrior, a Cayuga of the Turtle Clan at Coldspring, 
remembers how it was done at Plank road, Cattaraugus Reservation, 
before 1900. 

“The morning before a meeting, the pole was erected outside the 
house and the fans and rattles attached to it, as a notice to passers-by 
that a meeting would convene there that evening. The priest burned 
tobacco.” 

He-strikes-the-rushes, in his account of joming the society (see p. 
127), specified that the fans were oriented east and west, that the rat- 
tles and the beater were hung on the pole, and that a tobacco invoca- 
tion accompanied the ritual of erecting the pole and displaying the 
bundle contents. However, Hemlocks-lying-down, also from Catta- 
raugus, asserts that the package of tobacco which was to be used for 
the invocation was hung on a prong of the forked pole (pl. 21), and 
that the notifier did not burn tobacco when he set up the pole. 

“They erected the pole early in the morning, and everyone knows 
that they are going to have Eagle Dance today or at night. But the 
messenger goes from house to house just the same to tell them what 
time to meet. Otherwise, people would not know what they were 
supposed todo. The messenger says to this one, ‘Go sing,’ to another, 
‘Take your costume down there and dance,’ (and pointing with his 
head and protruded lips) ‘There is a feast over there, go there toward 
night.’ ”’ He denies displaying the bundle for rain. 

Snorer, who was also raised at Plank road, Cattaraugus, speaks 
of having a messenger for the members of each moiety, which is con- 
sistent with the Cattaraugus pattern of moiety separation and with 
the ceremonial practice at Coldspring of appointing runners from each 
moiety to notify its members that a festival is going forward at the 
longhouse (Fenton, 1936 b, p. 14). Snorer also says that the sponsor 
erected his own pole and displayed the bundle. 

Ihave to put up that society myself. I go tell two fellows of different clans, who 
are of each side [moiety] to notify the people. They gather the singers, the danc- 
ers, and speakers. They must secure two old fellows to speak first: the first 
speaker [hatha’ha’] to make the thanksgiving address to our Creator that we are 
living and the second to notify the Eagles by burning tobacco. Their clan does 
not matter, but they must be older men because young folks don’t understand 
how to do this. 

The messenger [hadja’swas] goes from house to house [hano/ndi-’ta’] notifying 
the members to gather. 

Meanwhile, I must put up quite a mess of corn soup with a hog head boiled in 
it, to pass around when they get through so they can bite like crows [eodiga’hga’’] 
crying ga’-’ga’-’ like crows (which they are). 

Early in the morning, when the sponsor [hod¢’Sa-ni-] first decides to put up a 
meeting, he erects a pole before his house and hangs the two fans and the rattles, 


136 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY | Bunn. 156 


the drum, a rattle, and the beater on the top of the pole where anyone passing 
may see it and know they are going to have a dance there that night. The spon- 
sor erects the pole and displays the bundle, and the ‘‘notifier” [hadja’swas] takes 
down “the things” and carries them in and places them near the hearth where the 
priest will burn tobacco. 

At Cattaraugus where I come from, they use the pole and striking stick, but 
here at Allegany they do not use it. The pole was erected early in the morning 
as a place to hang the fan. It is brought in at night for the meeting. [He illus- 
strated how a speaker would support the pole with his left hand and strike it with 
the beater held in his right hand.] Frequently, they fastened the pole to the 
ceiling. In olden times, they planted a pole in the ground, like the war post. 
{However, Snorer had never heard an instance of its being struck down to end a 
meeting.] [Stone, 1841, pp. 43—45.] 


I have no comparable data on organization of Eagle Society in 
Canada. 
INVITATIONS 


The conductor issues the invitations among the Seneca. He 
selects a drummer as first singer (had¢’no-tha’), usually from the 
moiety opposite the recipient, and a second singer who helps sing 
(hadenowa’’ase’), from the other moiety to shake the horn rattle. 
He asks two or four boys to dance, selecting them equally from each 
moiety. 


The headman [messenger] goes to the members’ lodges and notifies them of 
their duties at the meeting accordingly. 

If they are only to preach or talk, he will say: ““You are chosen to go strike 
the stick [to talk, ’esoga’-t ’esne’gwii’eS’o’"ng’].”’ 

“You are chosen to go hit the pole and talk—and give out presents when fin- 
ished—” and he designates the time and place of meeting. 

If the person is requested to sing, the headman will say: “You are chosen to 
sing for the Eagle [striking pole] Dance [’esogii’ -t gane’’gwii’e’ ’sshadeno’dang’].” 
This man will be the first singer. 

When he reaches the dwelling of the second singer, he shall say: ‘‘You are 
chosen to assist in singing the Eagle Dance [’eso’ga-t gane’’gwii’e’’ ’ssadenowg’- 
ase’ -ng’].”’ 

ARRANGING THE MEETING 


Most meetings are anniversaries of former cures; a member puts 
up a meeting every year lest his sickness return. 

The person must put up a meeting every year, or get someone to put it up for 
him, otherwise his original affliction will return. 

It is a matter of keeping in the good grace and in good standing with the other 
charm animals. This brings good luck. It is like paying one’s dues in a so- 
ciety. [He-strikes-the-rushes.] 

Frequently they sing the songs for a father and his son, as they 
did for Wood-eater and his son during the winter of 1934, or a mother 
and her daughter, who may be remnants of a family who once cel- 
ebrated it together. 


It is medicine for someone who is sick. Someone becomes ill and that bird 


Fanon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 137 


is causing the sickness, and the nature of the disease is such that it will affect 
his legs. Once a (person) has been cured by this society, he should have a meet- 
ing at his house once a year, whether or not he is ill. [SRE.] 

The host may ask the conductor to select a priest (hade’nhi) or 
tobacco thrower (hay¢’’gontwas), or he may designate his choice. 
At Coldspring it is the priest’s duty to give thanks (gang’-nygk) 
to all the spirit-forces, an address which must precede all meetings, 
and “‘put tobacco on the fire’? while making the invocation. The 
host furnishes the tobacco and provides the feast by having his 
woman or sister make corn soup and boil the pig’s head which he 
has procured. Pork has now entirely replaced the flesh of game 
animals in those medicine feasts. The cook used to be of the op- 
posite moiety. 

Members should have bundles, but frequently a bundle is bor- 
rowed. The conductor often provides his own. Hemlocks-lying- 
down who acted as ritual manager for Francis Bowen’s meeting fre- 
quently furnishes his own bundle when he conducts the ritual. 

A new member usually borrows a bundle the first time. After that, they 
get somebody to give it to him. The other day Walter Jimmerson’s wife came 
here about a meeting for her daughter. I had an extra set of [dancers’] rattles. 
I gave them to her, and Great-night, my son, made the fans. This is the second 
time [the first meeting following the cure]. Now they will put it up again soon 
so people will know they have the rattles to use forever. 

This meeting is for her youngest daughter and herself. They are Heron Clan. 
[They came to members of the opposite moiety; a Turtle and a Wolf.] We 
just thought we would give it to them. You see the first time [they held a 
meeting] they used my fans. During the meeting, I told the old lady [she is 
about forty] that I would give her a pair of rattles. Then, after the next song, 
Great-night got up and said, “I will make the fans.” Now after they get the 
fans and rattles, they will put it up again. That is the second time [their first 
celebration meeting]. 

At Coldspring, the feast is hulled white corn soup (ono’hgwa’) 
with a hog head boiled in it. ‘‘They formerly used deer and bear 
heads, and pig was used when the game animals became scarce.” 
The member also has to provide presents to be distributed after 
the speeches. ‘‘We used to give away fried cakes, cookies, and 
‘wheels’ of boiled corn bread at Cattaraugus. They also used to- 
bacco. It is not important so long as the dancers get something.” 
Now they give soda crackers and apples. 

The woman who is appointed to cook takes about six quarts of 
shelled white corn and leaches it with sifted wood ashes by boiling 
it twice in an iron kettle over a fire of hardwood and pitch pine. 
Then it is washed three times in a twilled splint washing basket, 
or an old pack basket that happens to be handy (pls. 25, 26). The 
hulled corn is now placed in the larger kettle and boiled with pieces 
of salt pork and the hog’s head, and a few red pole beans are added 


138 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


for flavor. They ordinarily cook outdoors in summer to avoid 
excessive heat in the house. Corn-husker cut the necessary forked 
poles of iron wood, and since his wife could never remember where 
she left the pothooks, he ingeniously tied one end of a green hickory 
withe to the kettle bail with an overhand knot, and a few deft turns 
about the iron-wood travis suspended the kettle at the desired height. 
The kettle simmers during the afternoon, and is then set aside until 
the feast. Indoors, soup is ordinarily made in a wash boiler (Waugh, 
1916, p. 90; Parker, 1910, p. 74). 


MOIETY PATTERNING 


The pattern of reciprocal services between moieties finds its 
expression both in the selection of personnel and in their spatial 
arrangement. A problem suggested by ridiculmg members of the 
opposite phratry is the relative priority of the sibs and the dual 
division. Competition between moieties is also a socially sanctioned 
way of draining off aggression directed at the in-group, as in the 
Bowl Game, ceremonial Lacrosse, and in clan joking, which became 
quite intense when the Iroquois could no longer take up the war 
path and take it out on the Cherokee or some other tribe. 

Seneca society is divided into eight exogamous sibs, which are in 
turn grouped into two phratries, or moieties, of four matrilineal 
clans each. The clans are not ordinally ranked, and enumeration 
usually commences with the clan of the speaker and proceeds to the 
rest in his moiety. Then the speaker refers to the clans ‘‘on the 
other side,” naming them in any order. 


Moiety I: Moiety II: 
Deer Bear 
Snipe Wolf 
Heron Beaver 
Hawk Turtle 


Nomenclature and order of listing are somewhat arbitrary. The 
order does not include my estimate of relative power but follows 
Morgan’s order of ranking. The Bear Clan has perhaps the great- 
est number of active functionaries in the Coldspring Longhouse, but 
Beaver and Turtle are the largest clans; Heron and Hawk in the first 
moiety. The moiety numbers are only convenient. He-strikes-the- 
rushes believes the listing of the second moiety at Newtown Long- 
house should read— 


Wolf 
Turtle 
Bear 
Beaver 


They used to say that the Wolves are the dominating clan, and the Snipes in 
the other moiety. 


FanTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 139 


At Tonawanda Longhouse, they speak of the two moieties as the 
“four fireplaces’ and the ‘‘five chimneys.”’ Their order of import- 
ance, both in reference to numbers and political power, is: Turtle, 
Wolf, Bear, Beaver; and in the other phratry: Snipe, Hawk, Deer, 
Heron, and Eel; but the proper order of enumeration follows the 
enumeration of sachems on the Condolence Roll Call which recog- 
nizes reciprocal functions of the two halves: Turtle, Snipe; Turtle, 
Hawk; Bear, Snipe; and Snipe, Wolf (Morgan, 1901, vol. 2, pp. 214— 
215; Fenton, 1936 b, pp. 18-20; 1950, p.57;1951 a). ‘The people of 
one moiety call themselves by a term radically the same as ‘siblings.’ 
They call the members of the opposite moiety by a term whose stem is 
‘cross cousins.’ Two similar officials, of opposite moieties, are 
spoken of as if they were a pair of cousins, or reciprocates” (Fenton, 
1936 b, pp. 18-19). 

In the evening of an Eagle Dance, the guests convene at their 
host’s home and sit at random on benches and planks ranged round 
the wall. Women usually sit apart. Frequently a woman may be 
seen peering in from an adjoining room. The conductor who is in- 
variably of the other moiety from the host, places the singers together 
at one side of the room, usually in the middle. The dancers face 
each other, or sit together. Sometimes when two persons combine to 
sponsor the meeting, and they are of opposite moieties, there are two 
dancers from each moiety who sit in pairs facing each other, but 
moiety alinement is diagonal. 

Xx ) 
) xX 

If any two functionaries are of the same side (moiety), the con- 
ductor is supposed to borrow one from his moiety, and set him over on 
the other side, and later return him to his own clan with thanks when 
he has completed his service. It is not always done. At the meet- 
ing the conductor appoints a whooper, gift custodian, and men from 
each moiety who are to make presentation speeches before giving the 
wands and rattles to the dancers in their own moiety. These roles 
may be assigned when, as messenger, the conductor notifies the mem- 
bers when and where to meet and what is expected of them 
individually. 

At Coldspring, it is the food distributor’s duty to make the first 
speech after the presentation of the fans. He has no direct charge of 
the gifts, or basket of crackers, beyond his first speech. From this 
point each speaker chooses his own offering, depending on his whim. 

Parker writes of the Newtown meetings: 

The membership is divided into two classes by phratryship . . . . In the 
dance the members divide and stand opposite each other according to phratry, 

982306—53——10 


140 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


the animals opposite the birds. ‘Two dancers from each phratry are chosen, and 
one singer from each. [Parker, 1913 b, p. 124.] 

But at Coldspring, only a semblance of moiety seating occurs when 
Hemlocks-lying-down, who grew up in Newtown, conducts the cere- 
mony. He and Snorer were constantly being accused of altering all 
Coldspring rituals to fit the Newtown pattern. 

Djidg’gwas has heard old men discussing the problem of moiety 
patterning. They said that it was not fundamental, that it came 
later. When there are two dancers, preferably one should represent 
each phratry. Sometimes dancers are of the same phratry. My 
understanding of his explanation disagrees with Hemlocks-lying- 
down: A speaker of the first moiety should present the fan and rat- 
tle to the dancer from the opposite moiety, who sits across the room, 
and vice versa; a speaker of the second moiety reciprocates. 


Sometimes we have four dancers at Coldspring meetings. ‘Then the conductor 
gives the beater first to a speaker of my phratry who presents the fan to a dancer 
of the opposite moiety a (2). 


b 3 2 a 
c ( X 
Xj | Rr 


Then a speaker of that phratry is appointed to present a fan and rattle to the 
dancer in my moiety, b (at 3). Now a second speaker of my phratry presents a 
fan and rattle to the other dancer of the opposite phratry, c (at 4). Then a last 
speaker of that phratry gives the last fan and rattle to the last dancer (at 1). 


Or, he said, the presentation may follow from 1 to 2, 2 to 1; 3 to 4, 
and 4 to 3. 

Hemlocks-lying-down is quite sure that Djido’gwas and I have 
this mixed up. Explaining the moiety alinements with green and red 
apples, he said :— 


Hawk is sick in your phratry. He gets a man of the other side, like me a Turtle, 

to take charge. Now when Hawk is sick, Turtle “‘strikes.” 
1( X4 
2x )3 

1. A speaker of the other side from the sponsor gives the fan to the dancer on 
his own side. 

2. A speaker for the sick moiety presents a fan to the dancer on his own side. 

3. Now a speaker of the opposite moiety presents a fan to the dancer in his 
own moiety. 

4. Lastly, a speaker, for the sick phratry, presents the last fan to a dancer 
representing the sick one’s side. 

The singer must be of the same phratry as the conductor, the opposite side from 
the sick; his helper may be of the sick side, or he may be of the other side; it is 
preferable that the singers be of opposite sides. If you can’t get anybody then 
they are both on the same side. 


Spatial separation of the moieties into a dual division was not fa- 
miliar to Coldspring informants. One had seen it years ago at New- 


Funton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 141 


town Longhouse; another seemed unfamiliar with the arrangement 
entirely; and he remarked that if they divided into moieties, the custom 
must have changed recently at Newtown, after he left there. Cold- 
spring sources deny that one moiety makes fun of the other. ‘‘Any- 
one may make fun of anyone else.’’ Nor were they familiar with the 
custom of ridiculing one’s father’s clansman, which He-strikes-the- 
rushes described. 

Snorer, however, who also came from Newtown, knew about the 
pattern of spatially divided moieties. 


There was never room in a private dwelling. The conductor, singers, etc., 
must be of moiety opposite the one who puts up the dance, and the (2) dancers 
are of each moiety. In the olden days at Cattaraugus, when they met in the long- 
house, they say they divided as in the Bowl Game, but not now-a-days. 


Snorer never saw spatial separation. There has been no spatial 
arrangement according to moieties within his memory. 


But years ago at Cattaraugus, the cousins sat facing each other: The men of 
five clans sat on one side; those of the four clans sat on the other, but lately this 
has been abandoned. The Seneca brought this [pattern] from Buffalo Creek 
Reservation [1840] to the old settlement at Newtown. 


Similarly, raillery is said to follow the moiety pattern at Newtown. 


The speeches are usually in praise of one’s own clan and in derision of the oppo- 
site phratry. At the close the speakers all apologize for their clannish zeal, and 
say, as if everyone did not know it, that their jibes were intended only as jests. 
(Parker, 1913 b, p. 124.) 


But anyone may be a target for ridicule in the Coldspring meetings, 
even one’s clansman. 


Snorer had heard of patterned moiety joking. 

They had a quarrel between the clans. They talked rougher and rougher until 
they fight. That is why they stop. Now we only talk peace. We pray that it 
will be a help to the sick one. There is no more fun in gane’’gw4’e’. 

One could joke, saying whatever he wanted to, about someone in the opposite 
phratry or his own, or else himself. Speakers can make fun of anyone whom they 
know to be good fellows. Some get mad awfully easy. If I [were about to] make 
fun on the other party, [and] if I know he is cross, I know I can’t make fun of him, 
but [that] I have to speak straight words of peace. 

Djido’gwas gets mad easily. He is a good joker, though, but when they come 
to him, it is very different. He likes to make fun of others, but when it comes 
back to him, he gets mad. That won’t do. It shows in his face and he quits 
striking. 

It does not matter whom one makes fun of, particularly in the same clan, but 
often I make fun of someone in another clan. One tells jokes and funny stories 
to make people laugh; they are all the same people, only their clans are different. 
“T am Eagle [Hawk], my daughter-in-law is Turtle. It makes no difference.” 


Ceremonial ridicule along moiety lines suggests several possibilities 


concerning the development of Iroquois social structure. Moiety 
ridicule may be only native theory which was overridden, as prevail- 


142 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Buu. 156 


ing patterns are now disregarded, in practice. Moiety ridicule possibly 
derives from the general pattern of reciprocal services between moieties 
which may have diffused to the Seneca independently of the clans 
which they embrace. We have the testimony of two informants, 
Wood-eater and Djido’gwas, that arranging the personnel of medicine 
societies to permit the expression of the pattern of reciprocal services 
between moieties came after the introduction of the ceremony. 
Reciprocal moiety functions may have arisen in connection with 
moiety exogamy, or they may have colored the older clan exogamy. 
Morgan, Hewitt, and Goldenweiser have declared for the moiety as 
the original exogamic unit. Internal evidence leans both ways. There 
is a tendency to choose “a friend” for a child among his father’s 
clansmen, and it is also preferable for “friends” to be of opposite 
moieties. Custom requires the donor of a miniature talisman, the 
dream guesser, to be of the opposite moiety from the dreamer to 
whom he presents the gift making him a “‘friend.’’ One informant 
from Newtown, where ridicule between moieties has been reported, 
claims that it is customary to ridicule one’s father’s clansman, 
although no other informant has concurred; and several informants 
have described a joking relationship between a man and woman whose 
fathers were clansmen. If moiety exogamy once prevailed, such a 
joking relationship would exist between children of the same moiety 
whose fathers were clansmen in the other moiety. If the custom of 
ridiculing one’s father’s clansmen were extended to all members of 
the other moiety, which would include one’s father’s clansmen and 
one’s cross-cousins, we have a possible explanation for the Newtown 
custom of intermoiety ridicule. One calls members of clans of the 
opposite moiety cousins. If one conducted a joking relationship with 
the children of one’s father’s sisters, who would then be of the opposite 
moiety, by extension all the members of the other phratry would be 
fit subjects for ridicule.** Also, if the custom of making dream objects 
was once performed by one’s father’s clansmen, it may later have been 
extended to the other moiety. As moiety exogamy disintergrated 
and the clans remained as the primary exogamic unit, outside of the 
maternal lineage, as they may have been originally and which is the 
case today, ridicule was extended to members of one’s own phratry. 

The internal evidence for the clans as the primary exogamic unit 
is just as convincing. The maternal family is the true kindred group, 
but lineage is not reflected in the kinship system by grouping the female 
members of one’s father’s maternal family with the father’s sister, 
as among the Creek. The clans are composed of several maternal 
families. The irregular distribution of titles and clans among the 


45 I am indebted to the late J. N. B. Hewitt for this observation. 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 143 


nations of the League and the irregular alinement of clans with moieties 
all point to the multiple origin of clans. Clans were formed by adopt- 
ing women of other tribes; and clans have given rise to clans by fission. 
The moieties, moreover, are nameless among the Seneca. Maternal 
families compose clans which are grouped into moieties and these are 
primarily ceremonial divisions. Since much of my evidence denies 
the reality of moiety exogamy and patterned moiety joking, I am 
inclined to consider the possibility that the clan was the primary 
exogamic unit and the individual was the primary joking unit, and 
entertain the possibility that moiety influence may have marshaled 
clan exogamy just as it did interphratry joking for a time, and then 
disappeared. 

The old Newtown Eagle Dance formation, with the moieties 
opposite each other, bears a striking similarity to the formation of an 
intertribal Calumet Dance of the Hako type. The Seneca Eagle 
Dance apparently had its beginnings among the Seneca band who 
settled on Cattaraugus Reservation, and there it reached its most 
elaborate development. If the Seneca Eagle Dance is derived from 
the Calumet Dance of the Hako type, it could have reached the Seneca 
at some intertribal meeting down the Great Lakes, or a western 
captive could have introduced it among the Seneca. The already 
existing pattern of reciprocal services between moieties and the two 
halves competing in athletic and gambling contests made a convenient 
substitute for the two tribes which negotiate the Calumet Dance. 
Whereas among the Prairie tribes one tribe honors its neighbor, among 
the Seneca one moiety performs for the other. 

The priority of the sib or moiety was a burning issue in ethnological 
theory when I commenced this study, as it was in Parker’s time, so I 
gathered all the information I could get on the subjects of clan and 
moiety function and carefully tagged each individual with clan label. 
The data on participation, consequently, enabled me to check native 
theory against practice. If the data for this monograph are loaded 
with such intellectual baggage the compelling reason may be ascribed 
to the climate of sociological theory during the 1930’s. In reviewing 
these same data, some years since, current theory enables me to dis- 
cern other things. Whatever the origin of Eagle Dance among the 
Seneca and the other Iroquoian tribes, the ceremony has undergone 
changes of function within the span of traditional history. At first 
a war and peace ceremony, by the close of the eighteenth century 
Indian wars were over, and any contest of bragging on war records 
was likely to generate internal hostilities which could no longer be 
projected on an enemy. A wise chief or two pulled down the war 
post, but the reformer, Handsome Lake, advocated changing the pur- 
pose of the rite. Eagle Dance became a Medicine Society, and the 


144 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


speeches aimed afterward to cheer the sponsor. But the Iroquois 
love contests, and they had a perfectly harmless way of conducting 
spirited contests within the community and between tribes of the 
League, without letting their spirits get out of control. Contrast, for 
example, factions, over which communities split and separate towns 
arose, with intermoiety rivalry at Lacrosse, in clan joking, and the 
Bowl Game, which are socially sanctioned and ritually sanctioned 
methods of releasing aggression without creating permanent rifts. It 
would seem that for a generation or so during the nineteenth century, 
the Seneca at Newtown developed intermoiety joking to an elaborate 
degree at large Eagle Dance meetings held in the longhouse. When 
it was no longer fashionable or possible to recount war records the men 
of Newtown raised the tall story to a fine art and started a tradition 
of joking which, when manifest in other communities by Newtown 
offspring, was not always appreciated. I believe that these data 
support a hypothesis recently advanced by Murdock to explain a 
problem previously noted by Linton (Murdock, 1949, p. 90; Linton, 
1936, p. 229). 

Still later at Newtown, it is said that intermoiety joking started a 
quarrel between the clans; and tension, which threatened the internal 
social structure, coupled with waning numbers of adherents to the 
longhouse ceremonies, by the end of the century, made it no longer 
feasible to hold big Eagle Dances at the longhouse. Within the mem- 
ory of living Seneca, members have entertained the society in their 
homes, holding an occasional large celebration at the Newtown Long- 
house at Midwinter. Today the Eagle Dance ceremonies at Newtown 
and Coldspring on Allegheny River are scarcely distinguishable. 


THE RITUAL PATTERN 


The Eagle Dance ritual shares the ceremonial pattern of other 
medicine societies. The order is: (1) Thanksgiving (gang’*nyok) to 
the spirit-forces from the earth up to the Creator; (2) a specific tobacco- 
burning invocation directed to the disease-controlling agency who pre- 
sides over the society; (3) the ritual proper, addressed to the presiding 
spirits, but with certain concessions to the patient; (4) a symbolic 
feast of an animal head and corn soup for the participating spirits, 
which is also recompense to human beings; and (5) a final blessing 
for all who have come to help out. One may discover this pattern of 
sequence telescoped many times within a morning of the Midwinter 
Festival. Even the great longhouse rituals themselves are preceded 
by a thanksgiving, and frequently terminate with daily feasts and a 
final blessing on all the celebrants (Fenton, 1936 b, p. 14). 


FEnTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 145 


OPENING 


Snorer emphasized the importance of the conductor to the correct 
unfolding of the ritual procedure. His reason for having Eagle Dance 
in the morning was that a great many speakers employ Handsome 
Lake’s good message which must be spoken before noon. 


The first Speaker says, ‘‘Now listen,” and then proceeds with the thanksgiving 
prayer [Fenton, 1936 b, p. 14; recorded in text from Wood-eater, 1934; on disk 
record at Iroquois Conference, 1945; on tape from SRE, 1948]. Then he tells why 
they have assembled and that they are about to have Eagle Dance. ‘Now it 
will go on.” He tells who put it up, “he has prepared everything: Corn soup, 
genuine tobacco, and presents to distribute after speaking [yene’gwa’’istha’] among 
the dancers, singers, and speakers. Then he prays to secure help for this person 
from Dew Eagle that the person may derive his power from him. 


TOBACCO INVOCATIONS 


The tobacco-burning invocation or prayer is addressed to the Dew 
Eagle. Etiquette demands that the conductor hand the fans to the 
priest and assist him by holding the tobacco dish (anciently a twined 
corn-husk tray), or place it within reach while he is addressing the bird. 
The prayer must cover a minimum of instances, but within this frame- 
work each man’s version and manner of delivery varies. 

Wood-eater, a proud, self-contained savant, sure of his forms, speaks 
evenly, but frequently inaudibly, and it is never said of him, as some- 
one remarked of Snorer, ‘‘ He talks so low, in throwing tobacco on the 
fire, that no one could hear him, not even the bird.” To which the 
accused replied, “Dew Eagle might become angry if I talked too 
loudly.” 

Snorer continued his explanation: 


One is not supposed to talk loudly when he puts tobacco. The reason is this: 
If I tell you something which I want you to do, and I talk loudly, you will be both 
surprised and mad and say, “He is scolding me.’”’ That is why I speak softly. 

Further, when I pray or give thanks I speak in a low tone and easy. And 
preaching is a third [style of] thing and one should speak kindly. There is a 
reason and it happened long ago. 

People are traveling from Cattaraugus to ohi’-o’. On their way they stop to 
camp over night. There is a young girl in the party and she is lying by the side 
of the fire, and she has no breath. 

The old man went and procured his tobacco pouch, for men always carried 
tobacco, and he built a small fire, sprinkled tobacco, and whispered to our Creator, 
asking him to send this girl, his granddaughter, back to earth. 

When the girl returned to this earth she told a story. A young woman came 
after me, saying, ‘I want you to come after me,” and they went together. They 
went on a smooth path ascending the heavenly road. Finally on their way her 
leader stopped, saying, ‘‘Listen.’”’ They hear speaking—like the way I am talk- 
ing—and it is plainly audible and loud. The words seemed to go by past the 
place where they are stopping. They understood these loud words. The young 


146 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


woman, her leader, said, ‘‘We must return because those words go on to the Creator 
who will send you back to earth when you reach him.” 

Thus, she told the old man, on returning, about hearing the loud words which, 
however, he had only whispered. So he decided it would be best to talk in a low 
tone, easy and slowly, because, when the smoke arises bearing the message, the 
tobacco magnifies the words and they appear loud to the Creator. This is why one 
only whispers when he is making a tobacco invocation at a medicine society 
meeting. A whisper is loud enough. 

This young girl grew to be an old lady and died about sixty years ago [1870]. 
Like her grandfather, the Cattaraugus people had always talked easy. This 
vision brought a confirmation for an old habit. It helped the people. Their 
minds were easy. 

Ordinary conversational speech or announcing is entirely too much noise. The 
spirits do not prefer a scolding fellow. ‘The only time when one should really talk 
is when he is burning tobacco and making invocation to the Creator at the time 
the White Dog is sacrificed. They no longer burn the dog. 


The tobacco prayer follows the general thanksgiving and it is 
usually given by the same man. He is supposed to be of the opposite 
moiety to the person who “puts up the meeting.’”’ Wood-eater’s 
version was used at both meetings. In the first instance only he 
stood in the proper relationship to the host.” 

(1) The priest grasps the fans by their handles in his left hand and 
sprinkles tobacco on the coals. 


The smoke is now rising [from] the genuine tobacco. You [the Dew Eagle] who 
are soaring [or wheeling] high up above the clouds partake of this tobacco. 


(2) Another pinch of tobacco falls on the fire. [Wood-eater omitted 
this section the first time he dictated the text.] 


You also receive tobacco, you who are the leader, you [the giant raven] are gliding 
across the Earth at a great altitude.‘ 


You are also volunteered to notify him [the Dew Eagle] when we are 
having a meeting. 


(8) Again he sprinkles tobacco. 


You [the Dew Eagle] who are in league with [the patient] [have accepted him] 
[listen]. So now he is ready this very night. He has fulfilled everything. He 
has prepared those things which you requested; they are now ready. They 
have remembered you. He has set tobacco down for you [on the floor]. He is 
ready. It is here.‘ 


(4) He offers tobacco for the feast. 


He has carrion, food for scavengers, lying here, that which was formerly running 
about the dooryard, especially that part which was preceding [the rest of it] 
[i. e., the head of a game animal]. 


41 The following prayer was recorded in text. The English translation is as literal as clarity will permit. 

48 Wood-eater says he is addressing ga’hga’go-wa-’ the giant crow (or Raven) who traverses the Earth above 
the clouds. 

“Receive” is rendered in the sense of ‘‘accept,’’ or “partake.” 

4 Dew Eagle accepted the host to be associated with him in his society. Now the host has fulfilled all the 
requirements of the various origin myths and his personal dreams. In giving a feast, it is customary for the 
host to provide tobacco in a twined corn-husk tray, which the headman sets down on the floor after the 
invocation for the members to smoke. 


FEnTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 147 


(5) The pig’s head receives tobacco. 


That very thing, the part which was protruding [the head and snout]. It will 
go around [counterclockwise] when they finish singing.” 


He has provided right here [gifts] to be distributed by the speakers. 


He has a kettle on the floor of corn soup. [He omitted to say that it was 
flavored with pork.] He will thank you with that, when it [the ritual] is 
finished. 


(6) Tobacco is offered to the feast. 


So now then, it rests with you. [For] he has fulfilled his part.2 He has remem- 
bered you, you [who] elected him to be associated with. So now then, you 
are responsible. 


(7) The Dew Eagle receives tobacco. 
(8) And again: 
Now you help him, 


(9) Another offering. 


Now he has done his duty [literally, he has fulfilled.] You are said to be able to 
thrust aside all manner of sickness. 


(10) Tobacco is offered once more. 
So now another thing. [You will arrange it.] He shall be able to walk 
around on this earth amidst all manner of hazards [misfortune]. °8 


(11) Another pinch of tobacco. 


You said you collectively are able to resurrect someone when he is walking into 
an abyss [nearly in the grave]. 


(12) His song receives tobacco. 


So now your song receives tobacco. He has supplied these things as emblems 
[the rattles and fans, the contents of the bundle], and they receive tobacco. 


(13) Tobacco is given for the drum. 


That which regulates your songs [the drum and rattles] receives tobacco, for 
the ritual will require its use. 

It is fulfilled. 

So it is finished (da’ne’hoh). 


® Naturally the pig’s head precedes the body when it isrunning. The head is passed to the singers and 
members during the feast which follows the songs. All ritual circuits are strictly counterclockwise. ‘One 
goes around on the right—meaning his right flank is outside as he turns. The other direction is evil.” 

1 Crackers will be distributed to the dancers, singers, and principal functionaries. Formerly they gave 
away boiled white-corn bread, or tobacco. 

82 The patient has fulfilled the requests made by the Dew Eagle in the origin legend. It is now up to the 
Eagle to fulfill his part of the agreement by curing the patient. The patient has fallen ill at some time, with 
symptoms which indicate that the Dew Eagle has chosen him his earthly correspondent. He will remain 
healthy so Jong as he fulfills his guardian’s requests. 

8 Wood-eater says, ‘This world is full of all manner of misfortunes, bad luck, and accidents (which 
befall the poor human during his daily perigrinations); with the help of Dew Eagle Man Bowen be able to 
pass amongst these dangers without injury.” 

4 This refers to the contents of the bundle, the rattles and fans as a unit, which the priest holds as he 
invokes the cloud dwellers, and which are emblematic of the Dew Eagles, and this manipulation in the 
ceremony is symbolic of their behavior. The red marks on the wand handles are symbolic of the songs. 
The noise of the rattles symbolizes the birds scratching in the gravel. 


148 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Butn. 156 


Here the priest sometimes sings over the first two songs of the 
ritual. Snorer says, “There is smoke for your song,” then he sings. 
Djido’gwas used a simpler invocation. 
In the origin legend © the Dew Eagle told the little boy ‘When you dance that 
song gane’’gwii’e’, put some tobacco and say: 
Partake of the tobacco, cloud dwellers; it is ordained that at this time you 
receive tobacco, you very Dew Eagles. 

So this is what I desire, that this [ritual] of striking do good when it is performed; 
everything now is ready, even the real tobacco. which is used to plead with; 
everything will happen for the best and this person will be of good health. 

For there is corn soup which is meant for the ceremony; now it is fulfilled; I 
have everything ready! Let the ceremony of striking a pole commence. 

In order that you will think this is true, you the inhabitants of the vapors, 
therefore we perform the ritual correctly, and we plead with this real tobacco, 
which we employ [to reach] wherever you are living among the clouds. 

So this is how far we carry this.’’ 
After the prayer is finished, the headman takes the balance of the 
tobacco and sets it in the middle of the floor. The members pass at 
will, smoking it in their pipes. 


FORM AND CONTENT OF SPEECHES 


Descriptions of actual ceremonies show that speeches at the Eagle 
Dance adhere to a consistent pattern, with minor local variations. 
Custom prescribes the content of the first speeches; after that a man 
may ridicule himself or anyone else, preferably a man in the other 
moiety. 

Then the conductor must make ready for the dancers. Every- 
thing rests with him. He presents the drum and rattles to the singer 
and his assistants, and he assigns the presentation of the fans to a 
speaker in each moiety. At Tonawanda and Newtown a presen- 
tation speech is made for the drum. At Newtown the drum is given 
alone; then the rattles and the fans and rattles are later presented by 
separate speakers. Fans are no longer used at Tonawanda. 

In the drum presentation speech, he says that he was invited to come and 
present the drum to the singers. At Newtown he used to weave a story of a 
long journey to a foreign village which he had visited, using the story as an 
opportunity to expound on the proper conduct of the ritual, the songs, the agility 
of the dancers who picked up pennies or grains of corn with their teeth. He might 
say he witnessed the ritual there and that the singers he saw there looked like the 
very singers who are about to sing on this occasion. [He-strikes-the-rushes.] 

Dancers still wear the full dancing costume, which is no longer truly 
Seneca, but is an adopted Plains “‘show”’ costume. They paint a red 
spot on each cheek, but all the members used to dress for meetings. 
Snorer says the old costume consisted of leggings, breechcloth, moc- 


55 See his version of the origin legend (p. 83). 
% Usually only da’ne’hoh is said, which stands for the sentence, meaning ‘‘that’s all.” 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 149 


casins, headdress with whirling feather, shirt, usually white but 
sometimes brown. He has never seen them dance stripped to the 
waist. ‘They paint a daub on each cheek of red paint.” He desig- 
nated each cheek by marking his in turn with his index finger. 

Speakers do not paint their faces, and sometimes dancers do not. In War 
Dance, dancers paint their faces ad lib, and ribs on their bodies—always red, no 
other color. Other colors were introduced lately with show work. [Snorer.] 

Married men may dance. Dancers need not be unmarried boys. 
Watching-water remarked that there would be an Eagle Dance that 
night. I asked whether Two-arrows-flying (Hawk Clan) would 
dance. Old Snorer laughed. ‘‘He can’t dance Eagle Dance any 
more; he has a woman now! He is too young at 17.”’ Snorer was 
36 before he got married. “I never thought I would get a woman. 
My old woman finally came to visit me and she stayed there. We 
were married then. I was older than she.’ I inquired whether only 
virgins may dance. ‘‘ Yes, married men can dance Eagle Dance, but 
Two-arrows-flying is too weak now!”’ Snorer rocked back in his 
chair to enjoy his joke. 

According to Wood-eater, at Coldspring: 

The first two men who speak have to be of opposite moities. They present the 
wands, with rattles attached, to the dancers [representing] . . . their own 
respective sides. 

The whooper cries; the first song commences; and near the end, 
the first presentation speaker, a man from a moiety other than that 
of the host, strikes. 


According to Snorer, 


The speaker says whatever he wishes. 

I used to see the best dancers during many years, and I think of one fine dancer, 
and now I think I see here a man just like him. I have been keeping these fans 
for many years, and now I give them to that fellow to play with, because he looks 
about like the one I recall. I have been saving them all these years to present. 

This recollection is calculated to stir memories of the past in the 
minds of his listeners. The speaker may also refer to himself, they 
will remember him as a great dancer, and there is the additional note 
of humor. ‘I give them to that fellow to play with.” Fine speakers 
are chosen to give the ceremony a good start. 

‘““The speaker must be of the same side as the dancer.” 

Whoop. Song II. and strike: Second fan presentation! 

The next speaker repeats about the same thing to his dancer, in the opposite 
phratry, but he urges him to beat the other dancer. Try the best you can. 

After the presentation and imtroductory remarks, says Wood- 
eater: 


Speeches in the Eagle Dance should follow a set form. One should preach first 


150 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156 


to the man or woman who is having the meeting, wishing him luck and good health; 
then one may say anything he wants to about a man in the opposite moiety or 
about himself. 


Djido’gwas says one should say after striking the signal pole: 


So now I plead that this ritual of striking the stick, which is taking place, be 
performed for you; that you may depend on it when you shall travel about the 
earth; that you shall have good luck as you go to and fro on the earth’s surface; 
that everyone will love this man and that he in turn will love everyone. Thus it 
is well that you shall have good luck; you will be good to everyone when you are 
traveling about the earth. Thus it is nice that everyone collectively will be on 
good terms with this man. 

Several informants specified that anyone may talk at these meet- 
ings, but one cautioned, “If you talk and are not a member, you might 
get adream.”’ In practice all the speakers whom I have observed are 
members. 

After the first speech, one may make a joke (gowenowe’hdashe’). 
Sometimes jokes are unintentional, or quite impromptu. 

Two-arrows-fiying [Hawk Clan] spoke at Fast-talker’s [Beaver Clan] once, 
hoping his host would continue to be well and have many children. He already 
has five or six kids, so everyone laughed. [SRE.] 

Here follow some interesting theoretical observations which, how- 
ever, are overridden in the meetings for which I have information: 
“The opposite moiety tells jokes and stories on the other moiety. 
One does not make fun of a man on his own side.” 

For a contradiction of the above statement, the reader has but to 
look at the controversey between Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch (W. C., 
Snipe Clan) and Corn-husker, who are all of the same phratry, and 
who ridicule each other at Resting-sky’s anniversary. 

At Newtown, bragging of traveling is common, or one makes jokes on a friend 
in the opposite phratry. It is all in good fun. 

At Allegany, men used to become very angry with one another. Once Great- 
elm [Bear Clan] had a meeting. ARE [Heron Clan] [the other moiety] said Great- 
elm should not go up to Esther Fatty’s [Hawk Clan]; then everyone repeated it 
and enlarged upon it until the host became angry. 

In a way this last example both corroborates and denies native 
theory. The speaker was tormenting a man in the other phratry, 
but also a woman in his own. Great-elm, although a Faith-keeper 
in the longhouse, is the object of many practical jokes, originating 
with children as well as grown-ups. Deficient in speech and intellec- 
tual power, he is, nevertheless, a hard and faithful worker about the 
longhouse. He casts his vote in councils, although he does not talk 
from the floor. He belongs to a great family, and his good disposition 
gets him by. 

Toward the end of the ritual, when the presents are distributed, the Speaker, 


who has on his hands what is going on, must say this: he makes an announcement 
that whoever will strike again must “put up” himself whatever presents he gives 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 151 


away. A speaker must have something to pay when he talks. He can give to 
the patient or anyone there he chooses. 

Again, at the end of the ritual, the Speaker rises. ‘‘We are finished with what 
we had to do.”” Again he must thank everything which he returned thanks for 
at the beginning. He thanks those who took part. He bids all goodbye and 
begs the Great Spirit to tell the Four Persons to protect everyone on the way 
home. ([Snorer.] 


THE DANCE AND SONGS 


The movements of the dancers symbolize the behavior of the birds 
as described in the origin legends. The dance and the songs are 
essentially the same among the three Seneca groups. Minor varia- 
tions in Canada are described by Kurath. Each song is preceded by 
a whoop, which the members answer. At Coldspring they appoint 
a special whooper, but at Tonawanda he is one of the dancers. There 
are three or four introductory songs before the dance commences on 
the fourth song at Coldspring, but at Tonawanda there are two intro- 
ductory songs, and the dance commences in the middle of the third 
song, when the tempo changes.” 

The whooper cries. The drummer, or first singer, strikes the drum 
and, beating vibrato, sings the signature (waheya waheya heyong’). 
The dancer sways on his chair, looking from side to side, and flutters 
the fan held in his left band and shakes the rattle with his right hand; 
this is the bird on the perch. The singer repeats the signature, and 
then his helper accompanies him with the horn rattle. 

Now the tempo changes to an accented beat (goya heya heyong’). 

The dancer crouches on the floor and advances in birdlike hops 
turning from side to side, shaking the fan and rattle with the music. 
This is the bird advancing toward the meat. 

Halfway in the song, once more the drum beats vibrato. Here the 
dancer charges, weaving his shoulders and vibrating the fan and rat- 
tle far out on either side. This movement symbolizes the bird stoop- 
ing to feed (pl. 28). 

Then he raises up and retreats toward his seat; this posture is the 
eating bird looking around. They used to stoop twice during each 
song, but now only once. The second time the bird is eating very 
rapidly. The dance ends with three quick beats which the dancers 
duplicate with their heels and rattles and return to their chairs. Here 
the bird returns to its perch. The Seneca dancers must continue un- 
til someone strikes. They are frequently interrupted midway in a 
song. At Grand River, strikers wait until the song stops. 

All of the songs are quite similar. They are composed of meaning- 
less words of burden syllables which follow definite patterns in Iro- 

37 The reader is referred to Kurath’s paper for the analysis of the choreography and the transcription of 


the music of Eagle Dance, both in its Seneca variants from Coldspring and Tonawanda, and from the Onon- 
daga and Cayuga of Grand River, where she herself observed the ceremony and describes the dance. 


152 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Buue. 156 


quois music. The first song shows a similarity to some of the songs 
of the Medicine Company. There are some 18 songs in all. Ata 
long meeting, they use each song twice, and then thus frequently omit 
several. There is a final song, always the same, when the dancers 
lay down the feather fans (yowadjine’he: gonodiya’awe’). ‘‘The danc- 
ers know that this is the end of the dance.” 

In the accompanying painting of the Eagle Dance by Ernest Smith 
of Tonawanda (pl. 27), the four dancers are midway in the song. Fre- 
quently an object, such as meat, or corn, or a penny, is placed on 
the floor, and an agile dancer will pick it up in his mouth without 
touching either hand to the ground. The women and men are dressed 
in costumes of the Federal Period, except that the stripe of beads 
should fall on the instep of the men’s leggings. We see the first and 
second singer, and a speaker who has arisen to strike the forked pole 
interrupting the dance. At his left are the basket of gifts and a tray 
of corn bread which speakers present to the dancers and the singers 
when they have concluded speaking. The matron watches the ket- 
tle of soup at the far end of the longhouse, and a few speakers are indi- 
cated on the lower berth beneath the observer. The recipient is one 
of the three men seated on the far bench. 


THE FEAST 


The conductor has charge of distributing the feast. The follow- 
ing account, obtained from Snorer, supplements my own observa- 
tions and the testimony of the two Tonawanda informants. 


Now the conductor picks up the hog head, saying, ‘‘Let us pick like crows, 
now, you of the medicine company!”’ [edwa’gahga:’ o’*nch swatcing’ge¢’’shg’]. 
Then he passes it to the host first, then the dancers and singers and lastly the 
crowd. They bite. Some try and get the whole hog. The members are sup- 
posed to bite, because the Eagles bite. Years ago, I used to bite it, but now my 
teeth are no longer strong enough. I support the head with my left hand and 
pull at it with my right. They cry like crows and clamor for the head if one hov- 
ers too long over it. 

At the same time the head goes around, the [matron] gives chunks of meat to 
the officers: To the singer, his helper, the dancers, the headman, the Speaker, 
and the tobacco burner. 

They bring in the kettle of corn soup, our feast (wa‘diya’kg’), and set it in 
the middle. 


Now the conductor cries, ‘‘Ho now, set down your pails” (ha’ o’"n¢eh 
dzing’dza’ge’9q’). 

They slide their pails toward the kettle. The recipient, or some 
relative of the person who is sponsoring the feast, fills the conductor’s 
pail before he fills the other pails. This is etiquette. 

Having filled the pails equally, going in a counterclockwise direc- 
tion, he cries, ‘‘Ho now, pick them up, take them away” (ha’ o’‘n¢h 
n¢e dgsadje’k dgsading’dzak). 


Funton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 153 


It is all over now. Then he says, ‘‘Scatter, go wherever you can 
find something to pick at!” 

This custom of the guests bringing pails to the feast is ancient. It 
has its antecedents in the old custom of guests bringing their own 
dishes to a feast and then carrying food home to their women and 
children (Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 6, pp. 279, 281, 285; vol. 24, 
p. 201; vol. 67, pp. 91-93), a custom throughout the continent east of 
the Mississippi. However, Iroquois children may not eat feast food 
until it has first been tasted by their parents. 


DOCUMENTARY HISTORY 


Having first described the Seneca Eagle Dance at Coldspring on 
the Allegheny River and having shown how the contents of Eagle Soci- 
ety meetings are affected by participating personalities, I next ob- 
served the ceremony at Tonawanda, and then sought comparative 
data at Onondaga Valley, and on the Grand River in Canada. With 
these observations on the living culture, social interaction, and person- 
ality fulfillment in several localities, I was prepared to discuss the 
Eagle Dance as a cultural phenomenon, here presenting folklore and 
traditional history of the Eagle Society, rationalizations of local lore, 
how informants classify Dew Eagles, and their dream experiences 
which foretold membership in the Society. I next described the cere- 
mony systematically, employing as the table of contents for that 
section the ritual program of the ceremony itself; and in this manner a 
cultural phenomenon is described in terms of its own internal organi- 
zation. It now remains to place the ceremony and its cultural bag- 
gage in its proper historical and ethnographic perspective. 

Ethnology among the Iroquois carries Hagle Dance back a century, 
but traditional history records that about 1800 Handsome Lake, the 
prophet, altered its purpose from a war and peace ceremony to a med- 
icine society. Thus the process of “upstreaming”’ takes us back 150 
years. Beyond the turn of the nineteenth century there are vague 
ethnological memories of contacts with tribes ‘‘down the Lakes,”’ of 
war parties that went off to the south and west, and stories that adhere 
to certain dances, which were brought from other tribes. But the 
tradition of the Peace with the Cherokee which ended the century- 
long war with the Southeastern tribes finds confirmation in docu- 
mentary history. It is one of the most satisfactory aspects of Iro- 
quois ethnohistory that by proceeding upstream against the current 
of time one can often reach the flood of recorded history and follow it 
chronologically. Tradition ascribes the Iroquois Eagle Dance to 
a peace-making ceremony and links it to the names of Southeastern 
tribes—the Cherokee in particular. The next section endeavors to 
connect what tradition describes with what history records. 


154 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (BULL. 156 


The stream of history has many sources. Besides the stream which 
reached the Iroquois from the Southeast, another tributary came in 
from the West. At the mideighteenth century, colonial governors 
made a valiant attempt to stabilize relations between Indian tribes 
living on the frontiers of their colonies. For a half century Iroquois 
war parties had received French encouragement to go out against 
the “Flatheads,” or Catawba. The Catawba took a toll of Iroquois 
prisoners and Catawba who were not burned lived in several Iroquois 
settlements. In an effort to straighten out such exchanges of persons 
the Catawba delegation brought the Calumet Dance to Albany. 
The other stream of diffusion flowed down the Great Lakes from the 
Far Indians—Chippewa, Ottawa, Pottawatomi, Fox, Miami, and 
others of the mobile Central Algonquians. From these nations who 
came to Oswego and Albany to trade, in years that they denied the 
French, ceremonies associated with the Calumet reached Onondaga 
during the first quarter of the century. With this preview of events 
in mind, let us follow the stream of Iroquois history before exploring 
the tributaries. 


A SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE 


Clear-cut descriptions of an Eagle Dance do not appear in the his- 
torical literature on the Iroquois before 1850, although several elements 
in the complex ceremonial pattern which we have described appear in 
the very earliest sources. I shall take counsel from Cadwallader Col- 
den, who was one of the most considerable minds in the Colonies and 
was himself concerned with the History of the Five Indian Na- 
tions, and relate the “several Transactions in the Words of the Reg- 
isters” . . . so that “‘When this is once done, he that shall write 
afterwards need not act with so much Caution” (Colden (1727), 1937, 
vol. 9; 1902, vol. 1, p. 1v.). 

From 1634 on, one finds descriptions of feasts and the antics of the 
so-called ‘‘confraternities’” among the Huron which suggest activi- 
ties of the modern Iroquois medicine societies, and the two sets of 
phenomena, although separated by a span of 300 years, share a num- 
ber of traits and seemingly follow the same ritual pattern (Thwaites, 
1896-1901, vol. 10, pp. 175 ff.).. But nowhere until 1673, when Mar- 
quette encountered the Dance of the Calumet among the Illinois 
(Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 59, pp. 115-119), have I found a record of 
a ceremony which suggests the crouching eagle dancer shaking a 
feather fan. The ceremony which came to be called the Calumet 
Dance, and from which I believe it can be demonstrated that the Iro- 
quois Eagle Dance is an offshoot, was not unknown to the Iroquois of 
the French period, although they themselves at the time did not cele- 
brate or quite respect the Calumet. The Iroquois had other protocol 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 155 


for greeting strangers, and the Dance of the Calumet rather pertained 
to the mobile Central Algonquians. 

In 1667 an Iroquois chief passed through the Miami, Mascoutens, 
and Kickapoo villages, ‘‘ where he was received with the honors of the 
calumet, and loaded with presents of beaver skins” (Blair, 1911, p. 
350). La Potherie, contemporary historian of the savages attached 
to New France, comments in concluding his chapter that it is notably 
“useless to make peace with the Iroquois” (ibid., p. 351). 

From earliest times Iroquois chiefs have affected the pipe, and 
“to smoke together” is almost synonymous with “holding council,” 
but there is a vast difference between individual chiefs appearing in 
council and at once taking fire to light their pipes, which they scarcely 
remove from their mouths during the entire council, on the supposi- 
tion that good thoughts come while smoking (Gallinée, Relation of 
1669, [Seneca], an Margry, 1875, vol. 1, p. 129), and passing a large 
council pipe in rotation, from which all present take a puff and exhale 
to the sun, and the Dance of the Calumet in which the decorated pipe 
stem was the central object to which the pipe, usually of catlinite, 
was frequently attached. I can say for certain that a calumet is not 
intended when the Iroquois, in the parlance of the League, refer to the 
Cayuga as ‘The Great Pipe,” for the allusion is to an incident at the 
founding of the League when Deganawidah met the leading Cayuga 
chief who was smoking an enormous pipe. Of such a nature, I be- 
lieve, are most of the references to council pipes and pipe smoking in 
the literature of the Atlantic coast tribes, although large and multiple- 
stemmed council pipes were a feature among Virginia and Carolina 
Algonquians, among the Catawba, and the Cherokee (McGuire, 1899, 
pp. 547-548; Milling, 1940, p. 264; Swanton, 1946, p. 547). 

It is just as difficult to determine, moreover, whether the early 
descriptions of so-called calumets and calumet dances refer to the 
northern Algonquian type of medicine-pipe bundle dance or to the 
Central Plains ritual with the feathered stems, of which the Pawnee 
Hako is the archtype. Certainly, as Wissler wrote, “Every pipe was 
not a calumet and every smoking ceremony not a calumet ceremony” 
(Wissler, 1912, p. 168). Calumet is a Norman French word meaning 
cane or reed, ‘‘and the calumet of the Indians is properly the stalk 
of the pipe but under the name is understood the whole pipe as well 
as the stalk.’’? The stalks were “of a light wood, painted with dif- 
ferent colors, and adorned with the heads, tails, and feathers of the 
most beautiful birds . . .”” (Charlevoix (1761), 1923, vol. 1, p. 304). 

With these considerations in mind, I now propose to examine 
critically the history of contacts between the Iroquois and tribes who 
were in possession of the true calumet ceremony to place and date the 

982306—53——11 


156 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


introduction of the Calumet Dance among the Five Nations and 
connect history with tradition. 

Beauchamp (1907, p. 431) credits Lahontan with being the first 
observer to mention the calumet among the Iroquois in the council 
at La Famine in 1684, and then as distinct from the ordinary pipe. 
Garangula, the Onondaga orator, met the Governor of New France, 
De la Barre, and sat in council “with his pipe in his mouth, and the 
great calumet of peace before him” (Lahontan, 1735, vol. 1, p. 35; 
Colden, 1902, vol. 1, pp. 63 ff.). The Onondaga orator thanked the 
French Governor for bringing into their country the calumet which his 
predecessor had received from their hands, and then proceeded, in a 
famous address, to call the Frenchman’s bluff and assert the sover- 
eignty of the Five Nations. Had they not knocked the Twihtwies 
(Miami) and Chitaghicks (Illinois) on the head for cutting down 
the Tree of Peace and hunting beaver on Iroquois lands, contrary to 
the custom of all Indians? With a final belt of wampum he warned 
the French Governor that so many soldiers in so small a space threat- 
ened to choke the Tree of Peace, but assured him in the name of the 
Five Nations, “that our Warriors shall dance to the Calumet of Peace 
under its leaves and shall remain quiet on their Mats .. .” until 
attacked by the French or English (Colden (1727) 1937, pp. 86-88; 
1902, vol. 1, p. 67). 

What the old Onondaga speaker was saying was that beaver had 
already become extremely scarce in the home country of the Five 
Nations and their warriors were then ranging far afield in search of 
furs. The Iroquois role became that of middlemen between the trad- 
ers of Albany, mainly Dutch, and the ‘‘Far Indians” (Ottawa, Miami, 
Illinois, etc.), and largely determined whether the trade came into 
Albany via Oswego or went to the French at Montreal. At least two 
historians have made a case for the thesis that the Iroquois fought 
punitive wars with the Huron, Illinois, and Fox Indians largely to 
control the trade in rum and beaver skins (Mcllwain, 1915, pp. xlii et 
passim; Hunt, 1940). One has but to read the Colonial Documents 
to see that trade and Indian policy were inseparable, and the circum- 
stances which affected the movement of furs also influenced the spread 
of the Calumet from the Great Lakes into the Iroquois country. 

Toward the close of the seventeenth century the Calumet Dance was 
in vogue among the Central Algonquians for cementing intertribal 
treaties in every case where the Iroquois used wampum belts. We 
find that about 1690 the Ottawa sent the Iroquois red stone calumets 
and bales of beaver skins in exchange for eight wampums which had 
been sent to secure an alliance (La Potherie in Blair, 1912, vol. 2, p. 96; 
Wraxall, in Mcllwain, 1915, p. 15). That year certain of the Huron, who 
for more than a generation had been refugees among the Ottawa and 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 157 


even among the Sioux (Robinson, 1904, pp. 31-32), made a pretext of 
going to Saginaw to gather herbs but went from Michilimackinac to 
the Iroquois bearing a calumet ornamented with plumes, and several 
collars (of wampum) to confirm the message of the Ottawa asking for a 
full union with the Iroquois, which action indicated a desire to abandon 
the side of the French in order to put themselves under the protection 
of the English (La Potherie in Blair, 1912, vol. 2, p. 106). 

Dates for this period are deceptive and confusing, but Beauchamp 
credits Colden and Smith for having noticed a council of the League 
held January 22, 1690, although Wraxall’s Abridgement dates it 
February 3, 1689, at which Cannehoot, the Seneca speaker, reported 
negotiations conducted the previous summer between the Seneca, on 
behalf of the League, and a band of Ottawa who had concluded a peace 
for themselves and several western nations, who gave “a red Marble 
Sun as large as a Plate” and “‘a large Pipe of red Marble” which 
‘‘Presents were hung up in the House, in the Sight of the whole assem- 
bly, and afterwards distributed among the several Nations, and their 
acceptance was a Ratification of the Treaty’? (Beauchamp, 1905, 
p. 237). Three Ottawa, who were present, according to Wraxall’s 
Abridgement, “promised to use their best endeavors to bring the 
‘Tobacco Nation and the other Ottawa bands’ into the Alliance.” 
(Wraxall, on MclIlwain, 1915, p. 15.) 

Although we have gone to some pains to establish the introduction 
of the calumet—both the pipe and the fan—among the Five Nations 
prior to 1700, nevertheless, Iroquois sachems continued to sit in coun- 
cil smoking pipes individually, and the council went on using wampum 
belts for all purposes for which their western neighbors employed 
the calumet (Beauchamp, 1907, p. 433). 

The French for reasons of personal inviolability influenced the rapid 
spread of the calumet about 1679. Intimate trade contacts with the 
Ottawa and their allies about the Straits of Mackinac, and among 
the Illinois, to the south, brought the calumet sooner into prominence 
in Canada than in New York (McGuire, 1899, p. 554; Beauchamp, 
1907, p. 432). Contemporary writers support McGuire’s thesis. 
Charlevois wrote in 1721, ‘‘It is more in use among the southern and 
western nations, than among the eastern and northern, and is more 
frequently employed for peace than for war” (Charlevoix, 1923, vol. 
1, p. 304). 

Lafitau, the Jesuit ethnologist and missionary among the Christian 
Abenaki and Mohawk in the St. Lawrence Valley during the second 
decade of the eighteenth century, declares that the Iroquois and the 
Indians near Quebec did not use the Calumet of Peace. 


The law of nations is much more respected among the nations of the interior 
who dwell towards Louisiana along the shores of the Mississippi, who observe the 


158 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


custom of the calumet, which the Iroquois lack, as much as the natives near 
Quebec and in the Lower St. Lawrence River. [Lafitau, 1724, vol. 2, p. 314.] 

A captive from the Fox, brought to the mission where Lafitau was 
staying (ca. 1720), introduced the Calumet Dance among the Chris- 
tianized Abenaki. ‘“‘The nation assembled often in the cabin where 
he [the Fox] had been adopted—to see him dance and hear him sing.” 
Lafitau personally derived nothing but pleasure from witnessing it 
(ibid., vol. 2, pp. 324-325). Jacques Eustache Le Sueur, himself a 
Jesuit missionary at Three Rivers, Quebec, from 1716-1760, in 1734 
wrote a brief history of the Calumet Dance, describing its introduction 
among the Abenaki by the Fox in 1719 and the appearance of the 
dance the next year (Le Sueur, 1906, p. 191). The missionaries of the 
Jesuit Order, who themselves had carried the Calumet down the 
Mississippi, opposed its spread to the suburban Indians of Quebec 
because the Fox endeavored to seduce the St. Lawrence tribes from a 
French alliance and the Fathers thought the ritual endangered the 
progress of Christianity. Chroniclers of New England mention no 
ceremonial use of the calumet along the Atlantic Coast, other than 
convivial smoking. ‘They are joyful in meeting any in travel and 
will strike fire either with stones or sticks to take tobacco, and dis- 
course a little together’ (Williams, Rodger, 1827, p. 75; Rainey, 1936, 
p. 55; Flannery, 1939, p. 68). 

After the turn of the eighteenth century, the ceremonial pipe and 
feathered stem is mentioned occasionally in reports of New York coun- 
eils, but as something remarkable and connected with distant nations 
(Beauchamp, 1907, pp. 432-4383). The Indian Records for the first 
decade of the century roundly score the French for inciting Iroquois 
war parties to go out against the Catawba and Cherokee at the back 
of the English colony of Carolina and for continually fomenting 
trouble between the Five Nations and the so-called “Far Indians’ 
who wished to come to Albany to trade (Wraxall, in McIlwain, 1915; 
Colden, 1937). Deputations of Far Indians came annually to the 
western door of the Longhouse, seeking admission, and giving ‘.. . 
a large redstone Pipe, the greatest present or Token used by those 
nations in their Treaties’”’ (Colden, 1937, p. 364), until finally in 1710 
the League council convened at Onondaga to receive, in the presence 
of Albany commissioners, Ottawa delegates who sought a passage 
through the “Longhouse” to Albany. Captain Evert Banker and 
David Schuyler went. 

4 June .... When we came into the Castle we were sent for into the Gent 
Assembly, Where we found 3 Wagenhaes or Uttawawas singing the Song of Joy. 
They had long Stone Pipes in their hands & under the Pipes hung Feathers as 
big as Eagles Wings. When they left off singing well we filled their Pipes & let 


them smoake, when They had done, They filled the Pipes for us to Snoak—this 
is the token of Friendship. [Wraxall, in McIlwain, 1915, p. 70.) 8 June ... 


FanTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 159 


they gave Two Stone Pipes to remain at Onondaga as a memorial of this Treaty 
for each Party to smoke out of whenever they hereafter met ..... {Ibid., p. 73.] 

In 1712, when the Delaware got ready to carry their annual tribute 
to Onondaga, they sent for the Governor of Pennsylvania and laid out 
on the floor 32 belts of wampum in which various figures had been 
wrought by their women, and a large calumet which they said had 
been given to them a generation previously when they submitted to 
the Five Nations, who had told them to show it whenever they came 
to a new place and on returning to Onondaga as symbolic of their 
friendship and subjection to the Five Nations. The calumet, which 
attracted some attention and is variously described in the records, 
had ‘‘a stone head, a wooden or cane shaft, and feathers fixt to it 
like wings, with other ornaments” (Provincial Council of Pa., Minutes, 
1852, vol. 2, p. 546; Hanna, 1911, vol. 1, pp. 101-102 [slightly different]; 
Weslager, 1944, p. 383). 

It is interesting that the Delaware, who were then the southern 
neighbors of the Iroquois, employed wampum in far greater proportion 
to the lone calumet. Wampum, of course, originated with the coastal 
Algonquian tribes from whom it spread inland under Dutch and 
English stimulus with the trade. Tribes beyond the mountains had 
little wampum and prized it greatly and they could only obtain it 
through Iroquois or Delaware middlemen. No one understood this 
situation better than the Moravian missionary Zeisberger, who wrote 
in 1780, from a lifetime of observing Iroquois, Delaware, and Shawnee 
then living in settlements along the Ohio River, that the wing of a 
large bird was formerly used by people coming to the Delaware, who 
possessed no wampum, nor had they seen it (Zeisberger, 1910, p. 32). 
The Shawnee and Miami were then the next tribes west, and the former 
having once lived near the coast were familiar with wampum. 

I infer from the records that the Tuscarora, who left the Neuse 
River in Carolina about 1711 and returned to the fold of the Five 
Nations in 1714, came north too early to have brought the Calumet 
Dance. They were living along the branches of the Susquehanna 
in 1716 when they became the sixth nation of the Iroquois Confed- 
eracy; but the Tuscarora first appear in the Albany records as par- 
ticipants at a Governor’s council held during August 1722, represent- 
ing a village situated between Oneida and Onondaga, after which 
the Iroquois were known to the English as the Six Nations (Wraxall, 
in Mcllwain, 1915, pp. 101, 115, 143, 144; O’Callaghan, 1857, vol. 5, 
p. 671). 

Meanwhile an illicit trade had grown up between the Albany 
Dutch and Montreal fur buyers in which Caughnawaga Mohawks 
were the bearers. Prices on the black market were cheaper than 
prices of the French monopoly. But the English wanted to confine 


160 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


the trade to Albany, and Governor Burnet prohibited the trade in 
1720, after which the Indians from around Detroit commenced once 
more to come to Albany on the invitation of the Seneca and English, 
and in 1722, even some Ottawa braved French displeasure (MclIlwain, 
1915, p. Ixvii). 

In the beginning of May, 1723, a Nation of Indians came to Albany singing 
and dancing, with their Calumets before them, as they always do when they 
come to any Place where they have not been before. We do not find that the 
Commissioners of Indian Affairs, were able to inform themselves what Nation 
this was. [Colden, Report of 1724, 1902, vol. 2, p. 26; Wraxall, in MeclIlwain 1915, 
p. 140.] 


At the end of May, 80 more of the same people from Michilimackinac 
arrived with a Six Nations interpreter, seeking admission as a seventh 
nation of the League, and they left a calumet at Albany besides 
sending others among the Six Nations. The delegation probably 
comprised mixed Huron and Ottawa, but the alliance was of no 
duration. Their chief Sakena, in explaining the custom of smoking 
the peace pipe, told how the previous spring he had sent two calumets 
by canoe to Onondaga, but that his emissaries had been intercepted 
by the French near Oswego. In the faith that the gift of a calumet 
and smoking together were tantamount to an alliance as the seventh 
nation, he gave a beaver coat to wrap and preserve the pipe (Wraxall, 
in Mcllwain, 1915, pp. 144-145; O’Callaghan, 1853-57, vol. 5, pp. 693— 
695 [where the date appears as August 29]; Beauchamp, 1905, p. 269; 
1907, p. 433; Schoolcraft, 1847, p. 113). 

For all the Far Indians that filtered through the Longhouse to 
Albany, many more contacted the Seneca who were Keepers of the 
Western Door. And hunting parties of the Seneca and Cayuga 
ranged into Ohio and Indiana. In the eyes of the old men who 
sat at Onondaga, the Iroquois who had settled on the Ohio were 
for the most part young people who had gone there to hunt for meat 
and peltry and settled down a season later. The Longhouse was 
decaying at its corners, and to offset the growth of satellite authori- 
ties, which they foresaw were bound to spring up and threaten the 
integrity of the League, the sachems of the Six Nations about 1747 
appointed a “half king,” or civil governor, named Scaroyady, who 
was to stand for the League in all the Ohio country (Wallace, Paul A. 
W., 1945, pp. 258 ff.). The Half King made his headquarters at Logs- 
town, where he received messengers of colonial governments including 
Weiser, Gist, and Washington, and from which he led deputations 
of Shawnee, Mingo, and Miami chiefs to Lancaster, Pa. Here was 
an official liaison between the great fire at Onondaga and the Miami 
bands centered on the Great Miami River who publicly celebrated 
such alliances with the Calumet Dance. Compared to the few public 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 161 


records of its celebration, one wonders how frequent were the informal 
contacts in which individual Seneca learned the ceremony. 

Between 1667 when an Iroquois chief received the honors of the 
Calumet Dance in the Miami, Mascoutin, and Kickapoo villages 
(La Potherie in Blair, 1911, vol. 1, p. 350), and the series of treaties 
and conferences with the hostile Indians of the Northwest Territory 
which terminated in Greenville in 1796, many such occasions brought 
delegations of the Six Nations into the presence of the Miami. But 
we need not infer diffusion when it can be documented. 

Of the many descriptions of the Calumet Dance, that of Father 
Marquette is the most detailed and has been most frequently quoted 
(Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 59, pp. 115-119, 131-137), but it is not 
the earliest. Marquette says he was received by the “Illinois,” 
to whom the dance is most often attributed by later authorities, but 
some of these references to the Illinois possibly mean the Miami, 
since the term ‘Illinois’ was in frequent use for all the tribes imme- 
diately south of the Great Lakes (Kinietz, 1940, p. 190). Allouez, 
who preceded Marquette up the Lakes first saw the Calumet danced 
in 1667 by a branch of the Illinois, or Miami (Kinietz, 1940, p. 192), 
and his account stresses veneration of the pipe, which is placed in 
the center of the room, individuals dancing in turn, pantomine 
of war danced to the drum about the pipe, circuitous passing of the 
pipe to all principals by rank, which reminded Allouez of the French 
custom of drinking from one glass, and entrusting the pipe to a keeper 
who is the honored man and who holds the bundle as a pact of peace 
or friendship (Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 51, pp. 47-49). 

French observers stress ornamentation of ceremonial equipment and 
the emotional and physical effects on themselves of the ceremony. 
Perrot was impressed by the calumet and its brilliant feathers. He 
notes the old man pointing to the sun and invoking spirits, and also 
pointing to the cardinal directions, after first presenting the calumet to 
the honored guest, the Frenchman, who was then massaged; and the 
French were embarrassed at the thought of being carried. The great 
chief of the Miami came to meet them at the head of 3,000 men, and 
each of the village chiefs carried a calumet but was naked save for 
embroidered moccasins; but they approached singing and dancing, 
bending their knees in turn almost to the ground. A feast followed, 
after the manner of Iroquois Eagle Dance (LaPotherie in Blair, 1911, 
vol. 1, pp. 325-330). 

The so-called Calumet Dance is not properly a dance at all, but a 
ceremony for greeting strangers and forming pacts between individ- 
uals and nations. Hewitt pointed out years ago that the motive of 
the ceremony is to create a sacred kinship, and that the purpose of the 
dance is to honor the calumet, which is the essence of good (Hewitt, 


162 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


1912). Itis a complex ceremony, moreover, composed of many parts, 
and it varied with the occasion, and whether it was performed out- 
doors in summer, at the margins of the village in greeting strangers, in 
an especially prepared arbor, or in a house in winter. French writers 
after Marquette and including Charlevoix and Lafitau, many of them 
priests, mention offering the calumet to the sun, a feature which they 
thought was intended by the Indians to call the sun to witness engage- 
ments then enacted. Charlevoix stated that the calumet was as sa- 
cred among the western tribes bordering on the Missouri as wampum 
was to the Iroquois, and he could think of no example of a compact 
broken which had been entered into by smoking the calumet (Charle- 
voix, 1923, vol. 1, pp. 304-305). Perrot, the trader, however, knew 
of such treachery by an Ottowa chief to the Sioux, and by the Iroquois, 
both eastern tribes; and both writers agree that the prairie tribes 
held the calumet in greatest veneration and respected its contracts. 

The Calumet Dance has a pattern of sequence much like that of 
the Iroquois Eagle Dance. Following the reception for greeting stran- 
gers at the margins of the village and bearing the guests to the theater 
prepared for the drama, the play has several acts. The necessary 
ritual properties are prepared and laid out with war bundles, “‘and at 
the right is placed the calumet in honor of which the feast is given,” 
and all about are piled the weapons of war. Appointed singers are 
possibly berdaches, and women assist. The first act is the Calumet 
Dance proper, second comes the Dance of Discovery, and third, the 
Striking Dance and recitation of war records, with gifts. The pipe 
is then passed and there is a feast (Marquette in Thwaites, 1896-1901, 
vol. 59, pp. 135-137). 

Raudot and Charlevoix have described Discovery Dance and Strik- 
ing-the-post, which, Kinietz has noted (Kinietz, 1940, pp. 194, 195), 
form the second and third acts of the Calumet Dance in its complete 
description by Marquette. The Miami excelled at the Discovery 
Dance, according to Raudot, which I judge from Charlevoix’s de- 
scription may be equated with Seneca Striking-a-stick Dance. The 
other as the name implies was the means of reciting war records or 
counting coups, a feature found almost universally in the Mississippi 
watershed. The Iroquois Eagle Dance and its relatives, War Dance 
and Striking-a-stick Dance, embodied the salient features of the three 
main acts of the Calumet Dance, Discovery Dance, and Striking-the- 
post, as they were severally known to French writers. 

But the Miami were to come over to the English interest at the 
mideighteenth century through the agency of Scaroyady, the Iroquois 
vice-regent, and the young warriors proposed to kindle a council 
fire on the Ohio and invite the surrounding tribes in defiance of the 
old men of Onondaga, who as usual decided to remain neutral in the 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 163 


war with France. The conflict between the generations beset the 
League throughout its history as the councilors endeavored to main- 
tain polity and negotiate disputes, and the warriors escaped from their 
arms to fight. This time the warriors came to Pennsylvania for pro- 
visions and arms, and they were followed the next July by a depu- 
tation of Twightwies, a great nation of 20 towns on the River Wabash, 
who brought to Lancaster, Pa., 30 beaver skins and a calumet pipe 
“with a long stem, curriously wrought, & wrapp’d round with Wam- 
pum of several colours . . .”” (Wallace, Paul A. W., 1945, p. 261). If 
we assume that young men were the agency through whom the Cal- 
umet Dance reached the Iroquois in the Ohio settlements, we have a 
hypothesis which would explain why the Seneca have the Eagle 
Dance in its most elaborate form. 

To support such a hypothesis the Miami afford two other bits of 
evidence, one historical and the other traditional. A description of 
“Warriors Feather Dance” by Gist, who saw it performed February 
28, 1751, at Pickawillany, the chief town on the Big Miami River, 
resembles what the French call “Striking-the-post”’ and comes the 
closest of the early descriptions to the Iroquois Eagle Dance. The 
affair was sponsored by the chief of the Piankashaw Band of Miami 
at the council house. 

Thursday 28.—The crier of the town came by the King’s Order and invited 
Us to the long House to see the Warriors Feather Dance; it was performed by 
three Dancing-masters, who were painted all over with various Colours, with 
long Sticks in their Hands, upon the Ends of which were fastened long Feathers 
of Swans, and other Birds, neatly woven in the Shape of a Fowls Wing: in this 
Disguise they performed many antick Tricks, waving their Sticks and Feathers 
about with great Skill to imitate the flying and fluttering of Birds, keeping exact 
Time with their Musick; while they are dancing some of the Warriors strikes a 
Post, upon which the Musick and Dancers cease, and the Warrior gives an Account 
of his Achievements in War, and when he has done, throws down some Goods as 
a Recompense to the Performers and Musicians; after which they proceed in their 
Dance as before till another Warrior strikes ye Post, and as long as the Com- 
pany think fit. [Darlington, 1893, pp. 53-54.] 

The feathered sticks recall the feathered pipe stems of the calumet, 
but suggest modified fans of the Iroquois Eagle Dance. Gist does 
not say whether the three dancers performed singly as in the three 
constituent parts of Calumet Dance or together as now among the 
Iroquois. The feature of striking a post, to stop the song, gave its 
name to one dance, but recital of war deeds belonged also to the 
Discovery Dance, and survives in three separate Iroquois rites. The 
added element of speakers making gifts to the dancers and singers, 
which Kinietz says is not reported by French authors, is an Iroquois 
trait. 

Tradition in the hands of a clever ethnologist will often pay off 


164 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Buun. 156 


where historical sources fail. The Miami retained cultural memory 
of the calumet ceremony into the first quarter of the nineteenth cen- 
tury when Trowbridge wrote down their traditions for Gov. Lewis 
Cass (Kinietz, 1938, pp. 27-29). Trowbridge clears up a number of 
items mentioned in earlier sources. In making peace, Miami am- 
bassadors carried a pole, on the end of which was hung the white 
hinder part of an eagle skin, and a “grand calumet ornamented with 
bones and feathers.’”? He painted a blue streak across his forehead 
and a heart on his chest. When, as Zeisberger said, the Whites intro- 
duced wampum and flags, he carried a white flag in one hand and 
calumet in the other, but added a belt of white wampum. He in- 
quired for the chief town and the residence of the Chief and went there. 
Passing over preliminaries of smoking, and the method of mutually 
publishing to their warriors that the road is open between their towns, 
we came to a description which is quite familiar. Note that there 
are four dancers, that a pole is erected and that the feathered stems 
are presented to the dancers by four speakers who in turn strike the 
pole with the feathered stem and recite individual achievements. 
Drum and gourd rattle accompany singers. The dancers evidently 
go in turn, which seems to have been the original way. Distribution 
of presents is implied. 

After a little time they invited the villagers, their late enemies to come and par- 
take of a grand feast, in commemoration of the cessation of hostilities. At this 
feast the common dance is the dance of the calumet (Pwaukdtina mééhendgee). 
It is danced by four persons only. Four grand calumets are laid upon a mat on 
the ground, ornamented in full with the feathers of the eagle. A pole is placed 
in the ground near this, and when the dancers are ready to commence, one of the 
war chiefs marches to the place of deposit, picks up a pipe and striking the pole 
with the stem, recounts in a loud voice the many feats of bravery which he has 
performed, and in conclusion says that all those things are smoothed down by the 
late happy agreement between the contending parties. He then turns about and 
selecting some active young man he gives him the pipe and desires him to dance. 
The young man leads off, keeping time to the musick of a drum & gourd which are 
in the hand of some of the bystanders. He does not dance long before another 
chief or great warrior goes to the mat and taking another pipe, pursues the same 
course just described. In this way the pipes are all distributed, and the dancers 
are occasionally relieved by the speech of a warrior who rises, picks up a piece of 
tobacco or a knife and striking the post therewith recounts his deeds in war. 

The guests after returning home reciprocate the compliment and the like cer- 
monies of feasting, dancing & boasting take place. When this is done the way 


between two villages is considered plain & cleared of thorns. [Kinietz, 1938, 
pp. 28—29.] 


Use of the calumet ceremony for welcoming strangers was in proc- 
ess of diffusion throughout the Mississippi watershed late in the 
seventeenth century. It had reached the Great Lakes in Marquette’s 
time, and in 1687 the Cahinnio, a Caddo tribe, so welcomed Joutel, 
but it did not reach their neighbors farther west until 3 years after- 


FEntTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 165 


ward (Joutel, in Margery, 1875-86, vol. 3, pp. 418-419). The French 
were partly responsible for its rapid diffusion down the Mississippi 
and into the Southeast, although its spread accompanied the dis- 
persion of tribes in that direction from the confluence of the Ohio and 
Mississippi which was its center. ‘To the east it reached the Creeks 
in an attenuated form (Swanton, 1928 a, p. 703; 1946, p. 547), and 
presumably thence to Cherokee and Catawba, soon after the French 
settled Louisiana. Its next recorded appearance in New York is 
from that quarter. 

Throughout the first half of the eighteenth century the Iroquois 
were at war with the ‘‘Flathead”’ or Catawba in Carolina, a cause in 
which their young men gained prestige by taking scalps and bringing 
home prisoners to replenish losses of manpower, although many 
Catawba were tortured. French agents among the Five Nations 
greatly aided and abetted these campaigns to the great distress of 
the English colonists who suffered depredations along the Warriors’ 
Path, which roughly followed the fall line east of the mountains from 
Pennsylvania to Carolina. British policy was to secure these Indians 
against the French, and the colonial governors were instructed to 
make peace between the warring tribes. As early as 1741, the Cher- 
okee and Catawba agreed to consider a peace settlement which the 
Six Nations offered through the good offices of the Governors of New 
York and Carolina. The Cherokee sent some beads, a pipe, an eagle’s 
tail, and a white flag which they had taken from the French. The 
Catawba sent a wampum belt, a pipe of peace, and tobacco. The belt 
which the Iroquois had sent was to be kept in one of the principal 
Cherokee towns (O’Callaghan, 1855, vol. 6, pp. 208, 210-211). The 
Creek also told the Carolina authorities that they desired peace, but 
the Catawba ended by refusing all such propositions and calling the 
Cherokee ‘Old Women” (Milling, 1940, p. 243). Raids continued. 

It took another 10 years to bring the Catawba chiefs to Albany. 
With them came several Iroquois warriors, prisoners of the Catawba, 
whose return the sachems of the League had insisted on as a precon- 
dition to peace. Having embarked at Charleston, Lt. Gov. William 
Bull, King Haigler, and the Catawba delegation reached Albany in 
July of 1751, where on arrival the Catawba performed the Calumet 
Dance, of which we have three accounts. Conrad Weiser was a 
central figure in the negotiations leading to the Albany conference, of 
which there are New York and Carolina versions (Wallace, 1945, p. 300 
et passim ; O’Callaghan, 1855, vol. 6, pp. 717-726; Milling, 1940, p. 244; 
Speck and Schaeffer, 1942, pp. 568-569). Weiser had been to Onon- 
daga the previous year to invite the Six Nations to come halfway, but 
when the Six Nations declined to attend a conference at Fredericks- 
burg, Va., William Johnson took the negotiations out of Weiser’s 


166 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156 


hands (Wallace, 1945, p. 304; Johnson Papers, 1921-1939, vol. 1, p. 
359; vol. 9, pp. 75, 83). Weiser’s journals contain the whole story, 
since he also accompanied the Catawba and William Bull from New 
York City. 

Of significance for this study of diffusion, one of the Catawba spoke 
Onondaga very well, having been a prisoner there previously, and 
Weiser appreciated that he knew what they were up against, should 
the Six united Nations not come to terms (Wallace, 1945, p. 324). 
Clearly the Carolina Government was more interested in the peace 
than the Indians. The party arrived in Albany June 27, and Weiser 
talked ‘‘in the bushes,” with Iroquois friends who counseled that he 
keep the Catawba party out of sight until a speech was made, lest 
someone cut their throats on sight (ibid, p. 326). The preliminaries 
took a week, and on the 8th Weiser presented Mr. Bull. Then the 
Mohawks and Governor Clinton sent Weiser to meet and conduct 
the Catawba to their proper place; ‘‘they Came along singing with their 
Collabashes dressed with feders in their hands, they Continued Singing 
for a while after the Sat down. in the mean time. the Calumet pipe was 
offered by the Catabaw King to all the Chiefes and old people of the 
Six Nations, and after this another Calmet was offered by one of the 
Warriours of the Catabaws, and the Six Nations Indians Smooked out 
of Both” (Wallace, 1945, p. 327). 

By Iroquois standards, the speech of the Catawba king was a flop, 
he being too much in awe of his hosts. But at the end, to make up 
for his loss of words, he “‘gave a large Belt of Wampum and Some In- 
dian pipes & the feders! that was died to a post after done Singing .. .” 

The Six Nations replied in 2 days, giving a belt. When the Catawba 
requested that several Iroquois hostages accompany them to their 
own country, the Six Nations said that they never customarily sent any 
“of our people with messengers of peace” the first time. But the Six 
Nations relented, and after receiving the Catawba in open arms in all 
their country, many of the Northern Indians accompanied the Catawba 
home (Milling, 1940, p. 244). I can imagine no better opportunity 
for the singers of the Six Nations, particularly in Mohawk, Oneida, 
and Tuscarora towns, to acquire the new songs and the ceremony. 

If the Albany conference of 1751 was another Clinton fizzle, out of 
which nobody got anything but William Johnson (Wallace, 1945, 
pp. 331-332), at least the eastern Iroquois saw the Calumet Dance. 

The official New York version contains only one detail about the 
Catawba performance not in Weiser. It says they “. . . Came down 
from their Quarters, Singing, with their Colours pomted to the 
Ground .. .” (O’Callaghan, 1855, vol. 6, p. 723). What this 
minute evidently means by “‘Colours”’ is either the feathers mentioned 
by,,Weiser, or flags which the Indians of the Southeast soon adopted, 


FuNT0N] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 167 


Feathers had a special sacred character among the Catawba, who 
employed entire wings of turkeys, geese, herons, and hawks for sweep- 
ing premises and for purification, and a Catawba chief carried a staff 
of feathers of some worthy bird (Speck, 1939, p. 39). Pipe smoking 
was also a regular feature of Catawba council procedure, and as among 
the Cherokee, the size of the cloud foretold unanimity. Speck and 
Schaeffer investigated my problem among the Catawba remnant and 
found both feathers and wampum belts used in peace agreements, 
attributing the former to the old Southeast with its feather symbolism 
and the latter to the influence of Iroquois delegates on the Catawba 
and their neighbors (Speck and Schaeffer, 1942, pp. 568-569). The 
Carolina version of the Catawba performance (after Mills, 1826, p. 124) 
is quoted from their paper: 

.. . At this time the Catawba king, and his chiefs, approached the grand 
council, singing a song of peace, their ensigns, on [or?] colored feathers, borne 
horizontally, not erected; every one present admiring their descent, dignity, and 
behavior, as well as the solemn air of their song; a seat was prepared for them, at 
the right hand of the governor’s company. ‘Their two singers, with the two 
feathers, continued their song, half fronting to the center of the old sachems, to 
whom they addressed their song, and pointed their feathers, shaking their musical 
calabashes; while the king of the Catawbas was busy preparing and lighting the 
calumet of peace. 

Then the Catawba singers ceased, and fastened their feathers, calumets, and 
calabashes to the tent pole; after which the king stood up and advancing forwards, 
he began his speech to the Six Nations, speaking of making peace.... And I 
give a belt, with all my towns upon it, signifying that they all join in my desire. . . 

The next morning the Mohawks withdrew from the Council, saying they were 
for peace with Catawba, and that those who were not, might deliberate further. 
Others soon agreed to peace. The Six Nations demanded prisoners from the 
Catawba, and said that when the latter returned with the prisoners, the peace 
would be concluded. ... 


The war between the Six Nations and the Southeastern Indians 
was to go on for another generation after the Albany Conference of 
1751 with delegations of Catawba and Cherokee coming to the frontier 
towns of the Six Nations suing for peace. The calumet-waving 
peace ambassadors were being pushed by the southern governors 
whose colonists had tired of Iroquois raiders skulking at the back 
country. As the French and Indian War heightened the struggle 
between France and England for control of North America, British 
agents endeavored to consolidate Indian tribes who were at peace 
with the English. The French had succeeded in alienating the affec- 
tions of the Delaware, Shawnee, and the Miami of Ohio. To secure 
the Six Nations as allies and prevent their defection to the French 
became the guiding British policy in all their subsequent dealings 
with the Indians, particularly after Braddock’s defeat near the forks 
of the Ohio. The consistent policy of the old men of Onondaga was 


168 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


to remain neutral as long as possible, extracting concessions from 
both sides. 

George II himself took a hand in these affairs and sent his cousin, 
the Earl of Loudoun, to America with instructions to secure the Six 
Nations. Sir William Johnson was continued as Superintendent of 
the Northern Department and Edmond Atkin and William Byrd 
actively engaged in enlisting the Catawba and Cherokee to mobilize 
at Winchester against the hated Shawnee and Delaware. But sucha 
maneuver was impossible without first composing the feud with the 
other Northern Indians, the Six Nations (Fenton, 1951 a). Johnson 
was at this task the rest of his life and spent a king’s ransom in presents 
to Indians. 

Johnson’s addresses to the Six Nations following 1753 fairly bristle 
with Indian metaphors, including analogies to the calumet, which he 
learned from Iroquois tutors. In councils of the League, speakers 
allude to a symbolic white wing, which the founders of the Confederacy 
gave to the Onondaga fire keepers, for brushing aside evil influences 
brought into the council by unfriendly strangers (Parker, 1916, p. 31; 
O’Callaghan, 1849-51, vol. 2, pp. 634, 638; Johnson Papers). On one 
of these occasions he presented the Six Nations with the largest pipe 
in America with instructions to keep it at Onondaga and use it in 
councils, thus establishing a custom that had not always been fixed 
among them (O’Callaghan, 1853-57, vol. 7, p. 64). 

The Cherokee and Catawba responded to Atkin and Byrd with an 
alacrity that no one had anticipated and began to arrive at Fort 
Cumberland, barefoot and hungry, and in such numbers as to embar- 
rass young Washington, who had warned the colonial governors to 
send up supplies. Virginia and Carolina traders had long vied for 
the Cherokee trade, but the presence of Cherokee and Catawba 
warriors in large numbers near the border settlements of Virginia, 
Maryland, and Pennsylvania alarmed the settlers who had seen 
northern war parties every year passing south for scalps and prisoners. 
No one was ready for the southern Indians, not even the Six Nations. 
The Iroquois declared they would never fight as allies of the despised 
Cherokee (Volwiler, 1926, pp. 116, 129-131; Thwaites, 1904-1907, 
vol. 1, pp. 34, 238-241; Loudoun and Abercromby Papers in Henry E. 
Huntington Library). 

Among the Cherokee deputation that came north in the summers of 
1757 and 1758 were counted 11 Cherokee, their women and children, 
and 3 Mohawk carrying messages from the chiefs of their nation to 
the chiefs of Six Nations. Detained at Philadelphia by illness of their 
leader, the party had Governor Denny write to Governor DeLancey 
to clear the path for them to Sir William Johnson’s and their desti- 
nation at the upper Mohawk Castle (William Denny to Governor 


FEnTon] TROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 169 


DeLancey, Abercromby Papers, AB 374, Huntington Library). The 
previous July a few Cherokee had come to the Mohawk to confer with 
Johnson and chiefs of several of the Six Nations; they had condoled 
one another, and gotten drunk as only Indians can, and meanwhile 
the Iroquois sachems had advised their warriors not to follow the war- 
path to the Cherokee country until the Six Nations could reply. 
Finally on September 19 came the answer of the Six Nations. Four 
Cherokee delegates were introduced to the council by Montour and 
were seated in as many chairs. 

Sir William then lighted the Calumet or Pipe of Peace & friendship & after 
smoaking a Whif or two presented it to the four Cherokee Deputies holding to 
them while each drew a Whif . . . and [so] to every Indian present. The To- 


bacco from whence it was filled was then put into a Bag to be carried home together 
with the Calumet by the Cherokees. [Johnson Papers, vol. 9, p. 848.] 


They were also given a white peace belt and a Seneca chief was to 
accompany them as far as Philadelphia, and farther if his shoes held 
out. The meeting broke up over a pail of punch (O’Callaghan,1853- 
1857, vol. 7, p. 327). 

When the Cherokee delegation first mentioned returned the follow- 
ing year, they recommended that Iroquois warriors coming their way 
should attach a bunch of feathers to their gun muzzles to distinguish 
them from enemies passing from tree to tree along the war trail. The 
Cherokee women advised their Iroquois sisters to provision their 
warriors; then the speaker concluded, 

BROR: 

We hereby present you with a Calumet and Wing as the manager of the affairs 
of our Confederacy, and beg you will keep it in Remembrance of our nation, at 
this place of public Consultations of the Confederacy, Light the Pipe whenever 
you meet upon public affairs, and dont let any people yt carry false & trifling 
Reports Smoke out of it. Any time hereafter if we should come to your Fire 
Place upon Business we hope to find this Calumet and Wing, in order that we may 
light it and remember the agreement now made between each other. [Speech of 
a Cherokee Ambassador to Sir William Johnson, im O’Callaghan, 1849, vol. 2, 
pp. 765-768.] 


The Iroquois speaker acknowledged the calumet and wing with 
directions, together with the Road and Peace belt; ‘‘ And if we desire 
you will with equal Care preserve the Calumet you received here last 
year, and observe the rules we then recommended to you”’ (Johnson 
Papers, vol. 9, p. 959). 

But the Cherokee-Iroquois war dragged on another decade until 
Sir William Johnson’s treaty at Fort Stanwix in 1768 (Mooney, 1900, 
pp. 202-203, 351-352; Ramsey, 1860, p. 74; Seaver, 1932, pp. 53, 105— 
106, 117, 376). The Cherokee gave ‘‘11 belts and three strings. One 
for Sir William had a calumet and eagle’s tail attached” (O’Callaghan, 
1853-57, vol. 8, pp. 38-53; Beauchamp, 1905, p. 332). But even this 


170 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156 


effort had not ended the old feud by 1770 (Manuscripts of Sir Wm. 
Johnson, O’Callaghan, 1849, vol. 2, p. 949; Beauchamp, 1905, p. 336). 
Sequoya, the native Cherokee grammarian and inventor of the syl- 
labary, is said to have been 10 years old that year when an Iroquois 
peace delegatioa visited the Cherokee town of Echota (Mooney, 1900, 
p. 109). 

War was no hindrance to aboriginal trade. The Cherokee carried 
on a lucrative trade with tribes to the north, trading white stone pipes 
and other articles with the Delaware in the Ohio settlements (Zeis- 
berger, 1910, p. 54). Catlinite passed south from the quarries in 
Minnesota. Firearms, rum, silver, jewelry, and wampum filtered 
west from the Atlantic settlements, and eagle wings and tail feathers, 
new ceremonies and their dances came east and north from the south 
and west. The Iroquois knew the country west to the Black Hills 
of South Dakota, whence they returned with prisoners; and they went 
from New York to South Carolina to attack the Catawba and into 
Florida against the Creeks (McGuire, 1910, p. 800; Myer, 1928, pp. 
735 ff.). In 1750, Cammerhoff and Zeisberger were entertained by 
an elderly Seneca chief who had been down the Ohio and Mississippi 
to the Spanish settlements, and he described the country, its people, 
and its resources (Journal of Cammerhoff and Zeisberger, 1750, in 
Beauchamp, 1916, pp. 80-81; Charlevoix, 1866-72, vol. 3, p. 45). It 
was during these raids and trading excursions, frequently of 2 years’ 
duration, that individuals learned new songs and dances. ‘A friendly 
visitor with a new sacred or social dance was always welcome in any 
Indian village, and great pains were taken to learn it”? (Myer, 1928, 
p. 735). Iroquois war leaders brought home captives, either to re- 
place fallen members of their expeditions or at the request of some 
house mother who had lost a relative on a previous expedition. When 
adopted, captives continually replenished the population, and they 
introduced new elements of culture. 

A century after the Potawatomi and Illinois received Allouez and 
Marquette with honors of the calumet, the ceremony was still in vogue 
among the Ottawa. In 1763, the Seneca alone of the nations of the 
Iroquois Confederacy joined in the plot with Pontiac to destroy the 
English. They were incensed at English intrusion on their lands, and 
they were farther removed from Johnson’s influence than the other 
Iroquois whom he barely kept quiet. On the first of May 1763, 
Pontiac, leader of the confederated Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi, 
appeared at the gate of Detroit with 40 Ottawa and under pretext of 
dancing the Calumet Dance, 10 men inspected the fort while 30 pro- 
ceded to recount their warlike exploits (Parkman, 1851, pp. 185 ff., 
203, 217; Burton, 1912, p. 34). 

Contacts between the Iroquois and tribes of the Great Lakes region 


Fanon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 171 


who had the Calumet Dance thus extended over a century and bear 
importantly on contemporary traditions of early intertribal Eagle 
Dances. Beyond the first contact of the Iroquois with the ceremony 
among the Miami, where had it started? Evidently the French 
wondered, for Nicholas Perrot, in discussing the Ottawa variant, 
wrote: 

“The savages believe the sun gave it to the Panys, and since then it 
has been communicated from village to village as far as the Ottaouas”’ 
(Blair, 1911, vol. 1, p. 186). The Illinois got it from the Panys and the 
Sioux from the Illinois during their wars (ibid., vol. 1, p. 182). Char- 
levoix also ascribes its origin to the Pawnee (Charlevoix, 1923, vol. 1, 
p. 306). 

Hopes of finding definite Seneca and Pawnee contacts are admittedly 
slim. Then, contact does not necessarily mean that the ritual passed 
to the second tribe. However, we do know that Pawnee captives be- 
came widely distributed during the eighteenth century. About 1700 
when the Pawnee were settled west of the Missouri in the present State 
of Nebraska, the Ilinois obtained so many captives from them that 
Indian slaves became generally know as Panis. An ordinance on April 
13, 1709, recognized their slavery in Canada along with Negroes. 
During the first quarter of the century, the French likewise encouraged 
the Fox to make war on distant tribes such as the Pawnee. By 1763, 
Pawnee slaves, whom the Sauk and Fox had brought as captives for 
sale to the French settlements, were to be found in the principal 
families of Detroit and Michilimakinac (Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 
69, p. 301; Charlevoix, 1866-72, vol. 5, p. 224; Strong, 1935, pp. 12 ff., 
16; Wedel, 1936, pp. 3, 99-102). There was a “miserable Panis,” ap- 
parently living among the Shawnee, in 1749 when there were Delaware- 
Seneca and Shawnee villages neighboring Logstown and Scioto in the 
Ohio country. He nearly precipitated the torture of Bonnecamp, De 
Celeron, and Joncaire, when he cried out during a council at the 
Shawnee village that the French only came to destroy them, and 
the Shawnee might have executed his threat had an Iroquois, who 
happened to be present, not persuaded them that the French had no 
evil designs (Bonnecamp’s Relation, 1749 in Thwaites, 1896-1901, 
vol. 69, p. 179). The sources do not say that this Pawnee introduced 
a ceremony of the Hako type among the Shawnee and Seneca in the 
Ohio villages, but if he brought it to the Miami, who had it, it spread 
from there east to the Seneca towns. 

In 1771, Sir William Johnson commented on the possible origin of an 
alleged Shawnee Indian whom he interviewed at Johnson Hall and who 
later applied to the Governor for protection from slavery. ‘It is 
certainly a common practice amongst the Western nations to sell their 


982306—53——_12 


172 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLL. 156 


captives of the Panie Nation, as well as some others their next neigh- 
bors under that Denomination, and Canada . . . depends a good deal 
on their labour . . .” (Manuscripts of Sir William Johnson, 
O’Callaghan, 1849-51, vol. 2, p. 984). Slavery was abolished in 
Canada in 1793, but the last public sale occurred at Montreal, 1797 
(Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 69, p. 301). If, in the absence of other 
data, we resort to the often criticized procedure of arguing cultural 
diffusion by inferred individuals, we must not overlook the possibility 
that, through some one of these contacts, the Pawnee Hako ceremony 
spread to the Seneca. Modern informants and the historical sources 
agree that the Iroquois raided and controlled the country west nearly 
to the Mississippi; they knew the Pawnee, but, since we have dis- 
covered no definite instances of intertribal meetings at which the Hako 
was celebrated, it is more likely that the ritual reached the Seneca in an 
attenuated form after passing through the Ilinois and Miami. 


DISTRIBUTION AND COMPARISON 


Having surveyed the history of Iroquois contacts with tribes having 
the Calumet Dance, in which the documents gave the time and places 
when the Iroquois could have acquired the complex of traits which 
it comprises, the task now remains of comparing the Iroquois Eagle 
Dance with neighboring variants of similar ceremonies to place it in 
its proper ethnographic perspective. The comparative method, 
which Boas, Wissler, and Spier have so ably used to infer history in the 
absence of records, has encountered criticism. The direct historical 
evidence for the present study is considerable, but to evaluate the 
historical record properly it is still necessary to engage in the same type 
of analysis and comparison. Until we know that the Eagle Dance is a 
variant of the Calumet Dance the historical record is of no use. 

If the hypothesis is correct that the Iroquois Eagle Dance derives 
from a variant of the Calumet Dance, the direct historical evidence 
indicates how the Iroquois possibly acquired it several times and from 
several quarters. The Calumet Dance possibly came to the Iroquois 
from the Miami during a century of intertribal relations in the Ohio 
country after 1670. Meanwhile, the Seneca and Onondaga were also 
hosts to the Far Indians—Chippewa, Ottawa, and Huron—who came 
down the Lakes to Onondaga and Albany, where they brought cal- 
umets in the interest of trade. The other main line of diffusion was 
from the Southeast, also at the midcentury. Since, however, the Cal- 
umet Dance spread into that quarter from a mid-Mississippi source 
among the village tribes of the central prairie around the turn of the 
eighteenth century, I am inclined to consider the Southeast a secondary 
source and favor the Ohio Valley route to the Miami, Illinois, Fox, 
and Pawnee as direct and historically valid. 


Fanon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 173 


The Iroquois Eagle Dance is a congeries of elements which are found 
in varying degrees among neighboring peoples. The ritual complex, 
then, apart from individual, local, and tribal historical aspects, already 
treated, may be considered from its distributional aspect which re- 
flects either archaic residue or diffusional content arismg from inter- 
tribal contacts and the adoption of individuals from one tribe into 
another. At the outset I suspect that archaic residue accounts for 
the Iroquois ceremonial pattern to which the Eagle Dance conforms, 
but the unique features of the ceremony may be sought outside of 
Iroquoia. From the point of view of their geographical position, 
being situated but one remove from the marginal tribes of the North- 
east, at the sources of the major eastern waterways, the peripheral 
Iroquois afford a poor springboard for a distributional study. Never- 
theless, I shall indicate broad movements of rituals which resemble 
the Iroquois Eagle Dance. 

For comparative purposes, the Iroquois Eagle Society may be char- 
acterized as one of a series of linked medicine societies, membership 
in which includes both men and women who have suffered similar 
dreams or ailments which a clairvoyant has diagnosed as Eagle sick- 
ness. These societies have two types of origin legends: the good 
hunter restored by a council of animals and the lost boy abducted 
in a hollow log by a giant bird. Sacrificing the first kill facilitated 
eagle shooting and autumn pit trapping. Eagles higher up have 
power to cause and remove sickness, and danger of illness attends 
being bitten by bird lice. Giant Crow is man’s intermediary with 
Dew Eagle, and messenger for the birds. A feature of the ceremony 
is striking the post, which stops the song and dance, to recite war 
records, travel anecdotes, humorous stories, or to ridicule another mem- 
ber, a pattern which has its roots in the old war feasts, but in modern 
performance links Eagle Dance with War Dance and Striking-a- 
stick Dance, with which it appears in combined performance, and 
with Drum Dance, now a religious rite. A second salient feature, 
common to all the cycle of war dances, is using the ritual to cement 
friendships or create a fictitious kinship between two persons of oppo- 
site moieties of Iroquois society, which when projected to the inter- 
tribal level is the avowed purpose of the Calumet Dance. 

In a third feature, members own buckskin bundles containing two 
fans of feathers parallel to the wooden shaft, two gourd rattles, a 
whistle, a feather, and a package of sacred tobacco, and each member 
may possess a forked striped pole and a beater. Water drum, horn 
rattle, and painting a round red spot on each cheek are generalized 
Iroquois traits. Preliminary ritual organization is shared by other 
ceremonies. Annual renewals of medicine society rites occur mostly 
in winter. A male conductor, called Big Crow or Big Raven, issues 


174 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


invitations, selects speaker, priest, whooper, singer and assistant, 
and two, three, or four dancers. Moiety patterning prevails, and 
when the society divides spatially the dual divisions resemble two 
tribes. 

The usual Iroquois ceremonial pattern regiments the ritual: thanks- 
giving and announcements, tobacco-burning invocation, ritual proper, 
blessing, and a terminal feast of animal-head and corn soup which is 
divided and taken home. 

The Eagle Dance has a sequential pattern of its own and unique 
concepts. Bundle contents are displayed on the forked striped pole, 
orienting the fans east and west. Ritual manufacture of fans sur- 
vives, but the fans lack sex or color symbolisms. Honored old men 
present drum and rattles to singers and fans and rattles to dancers. 
There is a whooper, whistle blower, and the singer strikes notes of 
approval during the speeches. The headman passes tiny pieces of 
meat to host and members. Speakers interrupt dancers by striking 
or stamping and distribute gifts following each speech. Women may 
speak. Dancers hold the fan in the left hand and the rattle in the 
right, crouch like birds, and pick up objects in their mouths. Rattles 
represent the noise of birds scratching and the fans symbolize wings 
which sweep aside evil, and the rattles belong to the fans. A special 
song precedes laying down the feather fans, which are rewrapped 
together with the rattles. 

Four and ten are sacred numbers, and all circuits are counterclock- 
wise. The head goes first to the host and then to the members who cry 
like crows; workers receive chunks of meat; and the host fills the head- 
man’s pail before he distributes all to the guests, who take home shares 
to children who may not eat until their parents have first tested feast 
food. 

The bundle and its manipulation before and during a peculiar crouch- 
ing dance are what externally distinguish the Eagle Dance from other 
Iroquois curing ceremonies. We shall accept as a typically Iroquoian 
the basic ritual pattern which regiments all Iroquois ceremonies so 
that performances today conform substantially to descriptions of 
Huron ceremonies written 300 years ago. ‘Traits peculiar to the Eagle 
Dance should occur among neighboring tribes, and in looking for them 
I recall Wissler’s caution: ritualistic ceremonies are ‘‘constructs,”’ and 
one “‘must expect to find common elements in quite otherwise different 
wholes” (Wissler, 1912, p. 168). 

The mythological motif of the lost boy abducted by a giant bird, 
Roc, to its nest on a mountain top, from whence with the aid of the 
young birds he gets home, is widespread in North America. Thompson 
(1929, pp. 151, 318) assigns the Roc motif number 31.1 in his index. 
It occurs everywhere eagles are trapped: among the Iroquois, Ojibwa 


FEnTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 175 


(Radin and Reagan, 1928, p. 87), Shawnee (Voegelin, MS.), Cherokee, 
Creek (Swanton, 1928 b, p. 36), Natchez, but of Southeastern tribes 
especially among the Alabama, Koasati, and Hitchiti (Swanton, 1929, 
pp. 90, 154, 193, 272); the tale occurs in the Southwest among Pueblos 
and Hopi (Hodge, 1912, pt. 1, p. 410; Fewkes, 1900); on the Plains 
among the Arapaho, Gros Ventre (Kroeber, 1907, p. 61), Assiniboin 
(Lowie, 1919, pp. 170, 240), Crow and Hidatsa (Lowie, 1918, pp. 144, 
147), besides the Ponca, Shoshone, Uintah Ute (Thompson, 1929, p. 
318); but the Plateau and MacKenzie areas afford even more ex- 
amples: among the Chilcotin, Shuswap, Thompson, Okanagan, Sanpoil, 
Kutenai (Boas, 1918, p. 286 and footnote 1); and Beaver, Hare, Chip- 
pewyan, Kaska, Dog Rib (Thompson, 1929, p. 318). A tale so 
widespread can scarcely be considered diagnostic, but it is interesting, 
nevertheless, that some Iroquois informants at Allegany told the tale 
as the origin legend of Eagle Dance. I have no references to the Roc 
episode among Pawnee, Omaha, and Osage—classical Hako tribes— 
but the Pawnee hero dreamed of the Water Monster who instructed 
him to trap eagles and to seek the eagle’s nest, where he conversed 
with the birds and received instruction on the ceremony (Dorsey, 
George A., 1906, pp. 52-56). Possibly related are animal abductors. 
Among Northeastern Algonkians, Fisher (1946, p. 253) notes: Eagle 
or mythical bird—Micmac, Passamaquoddy, Malecite, Montagnais- 
Naskapim, Cree, Ojibwa, Potawatomi, besides Menomini, Gros 
Ventre, and Cheyenne; absent or unnoted for—Penobscot, Algonquin, 
Fox, Sauk, Kicpkapoo, and Arapaho. 

Iroquois eagle shooting and pit trapping is peripheral to a wide- 
spread distribution in the Southwest among the Hopi, Taos, Jemez 
(Parsons, 1939, p. 29); generally on the Plains north to the village 
tribes on the Missouri; and in the Southeast professional eagle hunters 
are reported from the Cherokee, Creek, and Shawnee, and their 
methods closely resemble the Seneca (Beaglehole, 1936, pp. 25-26; 
Wilson, 1928; Mooney, 1900, pp. 281-283; Swanton, 1928 b, p. 495). 
There was a lodge of eagle trappers among the Dakota (Beckwith, 
1931, pp. 30-31). A young Dakota must learn to distinguish real 
from false claims to the red eagle vision (Beckwith, 1930, pp. 343, 385), 
which suggests Seneca distinctions between various colored eagles. 

A central purpose in celebrating the Calumet Dance and also in 
Iroquois Eagle Dance is creating ceremonial friendships of the cross- 
cousin type or father-son relationships between individuals who, when 
members of separate tribes, become the agency of peace between war- 
ring parties. Besides the Iroquois, such associations were recognized 
among Shawnee, Miami, Illinois, Potawatomi, Chippewa, Pawnee, 
Omaha, one division of Caddo, Cherokee, Sauk and Fox, Menomini, 
Eastern Dakota, Oglala Dakota, Winnebago, Hidatsa, Mandan, Crow 


176 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


and Cheyenne, Plains Cree, and Zuni (Hocart, 1935 a, b; Mandel- 
baum, 1936, p. 206; Michelson, 1937). In the Hako type of Calumet 
ritual, the visitors set themselves up as parents, and the hosts find one 
of their number to be the honored son. This parent-child relationship 
is of interest in connection with Iroquois moieties, which sometimes 
function as parent and offspring—a relationship which finds its most 
elaborate expression, at the intertribal level, in the Condolence Council 
(Fenton, 1950). The distribution of ceremonial friendship coincides 
with the Calumet Dance. 

Besides the Roc legend, pit trapping of Eagles, and ceremonial 
friendship, some 50 elements comprise the Iroquois Eagle Dance 
complex, but, unfortunately, data are not forthcoming for plotting the 
distributions of all of them. ‘Two elements, for example, the water 
drum and the horn rattle, for which data are available, probably 
originated in the Southeast; they are recorded late for the Iroquois, 
and do not extend much beyond them, gaining no mention from early 
writers on New England. The Turtle rattle is more generically Iro- 
quois than either the water drum or horn rattle, and the latter is 
ascribed to ‘‘western” sources by informants, who say that it was 
preceded by a cylindrical bark rattle (Flannery, 1939, p. 83 and 
footnote, and pp. 85-86). I consider these elements nondiagnostic 
for this problem. 

Belonging to the archaic residue of Huron-Iroquois culture are the 
traits relating to the organization and rationale of medicine societies 
based on dreams and cures. We read in the Jesuit Relations that 
the Huron have fraternities organized to honor certain spiritual mas- 
ters or tutelaries to whom the sponsor appeals in making a feast, and 
that all those persons once the object of such a feast become mem- 
bers, a child succeeding his father (Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 17, 
p. 197). The Eagle is one such tutelary. The same people anciently 
sought the clairvoyant to interpret dreams. Algonquians west and 
east of the Iroquoians shared these customs, more so in the Great 
Lakes area. 

Casting tobacco in the fire with prayer, the most common form of 
offering among the Huron-Iroquois, was widespread in the northern 
woodlands from the Abenaki westward to the Winnebago, among the 
mobile Algonquians including Delaware, and possibly in Virginia and 
Carolina (Flannery, 1939, p. 140; Radin, 1923, pp. 330, 447, 451). 
The basic idea of communion with spirits is elsewhere transferred to 
the pipe, which becomes the altar. 

While individual pipe smoking at councils was a well-developed 
Troquoian trait, ceremonial smoking, as we have seen, had its devel- 
opment elsewhere. The idea that those who smoke together become 
friends was found among Coastal Algonquians from Virginia north- 


FunT0Nn] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE Ti7 


ward, but the pipe of peace idea grew in importance going west up 
the Lakes, where the true calumet or feathered stem was found, and 
down the Mississippi to its confluence with the Ohio and Missouri 
and faded toward the Delta (Flannery, 1939, p. 68). 

Possibly unrelated to the Iroquois custom of making a present to a 
dancer or other person after a speech, a feature of feasts at which 
dances of the war cycle are performed, is the custom of holding 
feasts at which presents are given away (Flannery, 1939, No. 291, 
p. 143). Dancing away one’s property was a custom among the 
Massachusetts Indians, in which individuals one after another com- 
peted, dancing singly after the manner of Iroquois Personal Chant. 
The Narragansett celebrated this custom after the harvest, potlatch- 
ing the whole community, and the sources imply that a similar custom 
was known at Martha’s Vineyard, around Manhattan, and among 
the Delaware, where payments were in wampum, particularly to 
participants in the Green Corn Feast. The chiefly families of Mohawk 
Iroquois gave presents of wampum to each other, and there was a 
dance called Gannisterohon ® which only members of that rank might 
sponsor, and in which they distributed wampum to those invited 
(Beauchamp, 1895 b, p. 218, citing Bruyas, 1862, p. 79). Likewise 
among the Cherokee, Timberlake reported that warriors danced indi- 
vidually, recited exploits, and threw wampum onto a large skin spread 
for the purpose. All these instances are obviously not related to 
the same culture trait, although Flannery noted an underlying simi- 
larity (Flannery, 1939, p. 145); and I can add that the privilege of 
reciting war records carries the responsibility of paying presents in all 
the Iroquois striking dances, but distributing goods is also a feature 
of two feasts sponsored by women: Death Feast (Fenton and Kurath, 
in Fenton, 1951 a), and Quavering (Fenton, 1947, p. 10). The 
presence in Iroquoia alone of two kinds of feasts at which presents are 
distributed, besides the Condolence Council in which the mourners 
are requickened with wampum strings, suggests that the sources cited 
by Flannery relate to several things. 

The concept of the “head” permeates Iroquois feast symbolism. A 
human head, a dog’s head, a bear’s, a deer’s, and a boar’s head have 
all figured in successive periods as the central object of attention, 
symbolizing the feast of war and as the piéce de résistance at cer- 
tain of the modern medicine societies. In fact, the fund levied for 
the Midwinter Festival at Tonawanda Longhouse is still referred to 
as the “‘head’”’ (Fenton, 1941 a, p.161). We have seen that dancing 
with the head preceded going to war. Presenting the head to the 
chiefs first, or by preference over other parts, goes back to wartime 


#8 The modern Delaware “skin-beating’”’ dance is still known among the Onondaga of Six Nations as 
gani’stggeka~’ and by the Seneca ganisdogii’e-’. 


178 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156 


cannibalism (Flannery, 1939, No. 257, pp. 126-127). The concept 
may be attributed to the Iroquoians, although we shall find precedents 
in the prehistory of Ohio and in the ancient Southeast. 

All of the head is eaten at the feast, but the soup is taken home. 
This type of feast is not the true eat-all feast of the Huron and their 
neighbors, so frequently described in the Jesuit Relations, in which 
everything must be consumed on the spot. And the custom of 
bringing bark dishes, spoons, and lately pails to carry home the feast 
prevailed throughout the woodlands from the Caddo to the Malecite, 
so that trait is nondiagnostic for the present problem, although “they 
who carry pails at night” is a constantly recurring theme of modern 
reservation life among the Longhouse Iroquois. 

If we proceed on the assumption that the Iroquois Eagle Dance is 
related to the ceremonial complex known as the Calumet Dance, it 
seems logical to isolate those elements of Iroquois Eagle Dance which 
are unique to that ceremony in Iroquoia and to then compare the 
reduced complex with neighboring complexes most like it. In ordering 
the comparison the logic of history and geography is compelling. Cul- 
ture diffused in eastern America along paths and watercourses con- 
necting ancient habitations, villages, and tribal hunting territories. 
The warpath was the line of travel outward in aggression; the same 
route was followed by peace embassies carrying the calumet. The 
calumet and its ceremony has a riverine distribution, and for purpose 
of discussion the distribution segregates along four great watercourse 
systems: the Ohio-Wabash, of which there is direct historical evi- 
dence; the Upper Mississippi and Great Lakes, only partly docu- 
mented; the Upper Missouri, by inference and later documents; and 
the Lower Mississippi and its tributaries. Beyond the direct evidence 
of history and the inferential evidence of ethnological spread, there 
is some evidence for reconstructing a putative Eagle Dance substratum 
to account for certain common elements of well-nigh continental 
distribution, extending from the Southwest to Iroquoia. Finally, 
such speculation receives support and encouragement from a well- 
developed archeological literature on the so-called ‘‘Buzzard” or 
“Southern Cult,” in which various interpretations for bird symbol- 
isms range from Middle American influence to the more prosaic, and I 
think correct, theory of relationship to the Thunderbird concept of 
the Central Algonquian and Siouan Indians, or to some giant mythical 
bird, most frequently the Eagle—a character whom IJ hope the ritual 
of ethnology has requickened by the publishing of this monograph. 

Returning to the perspective of living ethnology, the climax form 
of the Calumet ceremony was the Pawnee Hako, an elaborate ritual 
of 20 parts and four days’ duration, which lived in the memory of 
Fletcher’s informants late in the nineteenth century. The Hako 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 179 


embraces most of the features involved in the widespread ceremony 
of earlier times when living sources ascribed its origin to the Pawnee. 
Four conspicuous features of the Hako suggest a relationship to 
Troquois Eagle Dance: 


(1) The use of feathered stems. 

(2) A dance in honor of Eagles. 

(3) Presentation of feathered stems by honored old men to the dancers. 
(4) Friendship (or peace) as the leitmotiv. 


In demonstrating the relationship of Iroquois Eagle Dance to the 
Calumet, there are some 25 traits to be accounted for. 


Peculiar features of Iroquois Eagle Dance 


(1) Ritual addressed to Eagle 
(2) Luring down birds (pit trapping) * 
(3) Eagle sickness: contamination by bird lice or dream 
(4) Raven messenger 
(5) Eagle Dance songs 
(6) Crouching bird dance mime eagles 
(a) rattle right hand; fan left 
(b) pick up object in mouth 
(7) Medicine bundle: tobacco, gourd rattle, fan (whistle) 
(8) Display bundle on pole 
(9) Striped pole and signal beater 
(10) Roc* 
(11) Friends (adoption) * 
(12) Messenger and conductor 
(13) Appointed whooper 
(14) Appointed singer 
(15) Appointed dancers 
(16) Pipe-passing * 
(17) Honored men present fans and rattles to dancers 
(18) Striking and counting coup 
(19) Gift distribution after speech 
(20) Song for laying down fans 
(21) Pass head and mime bird cries 
(22) Wings brush aside evil 
(23) Meetings mostly in winter 
(24) Lack sex and color symbolism 
(25) Moiety spatial seating 
The Pawnee are credited with originating the Hako type of Calumet 
Dance and from the eighteenth century forward observers recorded 
the tradition that the Pawnee were the agents of spreading it east, 
south, and westward on the Plains. For the moment we shall not be 
concerned with the recent diffusion of the Hako to the Teton Sioux 
(Walker, 1917, p. 122), or how the Arikara, after splitting away from 
the Pawnee, gave the pipes first to the Omaha (Fletcher and LaFlesche, 
1911, pp. 74, 376), and later were the agents of its introduction to the 


* Already discussed. 


180 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLu. 156 


Hidatsa and Crow during the second half of the nineteenth century 
(Lowie, 1915, p. 239; Curtis, 1909, vol. 5, p. 150); but we shall first 
compare the composite Pawnee ceremony with Iroquois Eagle Dance 
to see what they have in common before chasing the distribution of 
the Calumet Dance. In making the comparison, two ritual constructs 
of approximately the same time level are being contrasted. Earlier 
and later forms of the Calumet Dance can then be treated in proper 
perspective. 

With all the elaborate bundle complexes of the Pawnee, it is not 
surprising that one division of the Pawnee had an Eagle Dance 
(Murie, 1914, p. 640), and the Young Eagle Society Bundle, which now 
reposes at the Chicago Natural History Museum, exclusively required 
songs which ‘‘resemble those doctors use, which as a class differ from 
songs for bundles” (Murie-Wissler, MS., p. 157). The relationship 
of these two briefly mentioned rites to Hako is not clear, unfortunately. 
The Hako is one of four ritualistic procedures which were not compo- 
nents of the yearly cycle—Morning-star sacrifice; Calumet ritual; 
North Star Bundle ceremonies; and the New Fire Ceremony, or the 
Scalp Dance (Murie-Wissler, MS. p. 8). 

In the latter respect Hako resembles Eagle Dance. 

At the expense of distorting the pattern of sequence which Hako 
presumably shares with other Pawnee rites, the Pawnee data are now 
brought into parallel sequence with Iroquois Eagle Dance. First, 
the Hako is addressed to eagles, and its very name may beremotely 
cognate with the Iroquoian name of the rite: Pawnee ruktaraiwarius, 
“shaking a stick, or feathered stem,’ suggests its Iroquoian synonym, 
gane’onda-don’. 

Lacking data on luring down birds and contamination, I note that 
Eagle Dance is held for a sick youth and the power of running water 
figures prominently in the cure as it does in the Iroquois Little Water 
Medicine Company; and dreams and visions are stressed, having their 
locus among eagles, as the origin of the ceremony. 

Eagle instead of Raven is man’s mediator with the supernaturals. 
A brown female eagle is associated with north, peace, and heaven. 
A white male eagle signifies war, the earth, and is south. All the 
birds on the stem are leaders: the eagle presides over day; the owl 
presides at night; the woodpecker presides over trees; and the duck 
over water. 

Elaborate bundle equipment includes two hollow feathered stems, 
(feathered with eagle feathers and decorated near the mouth with duck 
and woodpecker heads); decorated gourd rattles (one for each stem); 
wing-bone whistles to mimic eagle cries; an ear of corn; a crotched 
stick symbolizing the eagle’s nest to rest the stems; and a wildcat-skin 
altar, but no beater. When displayed, fans are oriented north and 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 181 


south on a tent pole, and an elaborate ceremony attends the making 
of new fans. Fat offerings symbolizing plenty exceed tobacco offer- 
ings, but the emphasis on ritual smoking contrasts with Iroquois. 

The Hako is a summer ritual of five days, of which the nineteenth 
part is most like the Iroquois Eagle Dance (Fletcher, 1904, p. 253 ff.). 
Dancers hold a rattle in the right hand and fan in left, they sway in 
mime of eagles but do not squat, there is preliminary ceremonial feed- 
ing of children (eaglets); and there are special songs for laying down 
the feathered stems, which represent the eagle descending to its nest. 

Officialdom is more elaborate than Iroquois, and the conductor 
appoints main participants, including singers and dancers. The con- 
ductor appoints an honored warrier to present both fans to the two 
dancers, who are north and south. Holding the rattle in his right 
hand and the fan in his left hand, the privileged one recounts his war 
record and then presents the fans. There is no striking post, but 
other warriors may interrupt the singers by stepping forward with 
upraised hand. Gifts are distributed in the twentieth ritual cere- 
mony. 

Cosmogonic symbolism pervades the Hako. The wing of the 
eagle (not raven) is the doctor’s sign; ceremonial swaying of feathered 
stems stands for power of birds to disperse evil by flapping wings, 
blowing out impurities like Iroquois False-faces; the lodge is the nest 
of the eagle, symbolized by crotched stick; color figures prominently; 
directions and motion also figure prominently; four is the sacred 
number; and the honored child is the symbol of life and generations 
to follow. In winding up the equipment he is told of the good which 
will come to him. 

The purpose of the ritual is twofold: it forms a sacred kinship, 
as of fathers and sons, the latter becoming fathers to others, and the 
rite renews such associations. Moiety reciprocity between clans, 
which are most frequently of different tribes, is a focal factor in an area 
rent by factions. 

If the Pawnee and the Iroquois were never in direct contact, at 
least several elements in the Hako suggest to me a more easterly and 
woodland habitat for the Pawnee in former times: substitution of 
the buffalo for the deer in feasts; maize symbolism reminiscent of 
former more intense agriculture; and the peculiar treatment of water, 
on which ground Miss Fletcher argued that the ceremony originated 
in a semiarid region; however, both the Iroquois and Cherokee employ 
the power of running water in cures (Fletcher, 1904, pp. 253-282). 

While it is certain that the path of diffusion of the Calumet Dance 
from the Pawnee to the Iroquois lay through other tribes, such as 
the Iowa, Fox, Illinois, and Miami, the route of transmission cannot 
be documented for each tribe. Nor are the accounts of the dance 


182 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLD. 156 


among various tribes of comparable age. The dance in honor of the 
calumet among the Illinois, which term may infer the Miami and re- 
lated tribes south of the Lakes (Kinietz, 1940, p. 190), was first 
described by the Jesuit Fathers Allouez (1667), who first saw the 
ceremony performed in the Green Bay region, and Marquette (1673). 
They discovered in this remarkable ceremony of friendship a pass- 
port which was to carry them safely among hostile tribes living along 
the banks of the great river which the French were about to explore. 
The Miami band, which was visited by Allouez, was then much reduced 
by wars with the Sioux and Iroquois; they made a dance in honor of a 
single pipe which was ceremoniously placed in the middle of the room; 
individuals danced successively to the drum, pantomiming stages 
of warfare from preparing arms, dressing, running, discovery, the 
ery, the kill, scalping, and returning in victory; and finally the pipe 
was presented to the honored guest as a certain pledge of peace so 
long as he shall keep it (Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 51, p. 47). Its 
use in making peace, according to Allouez, was even greater among 
the Sioux beyond La Pointe. 

Seven years later the Illinois greeted Marquette with the full 
course of the Calumet Dance and his famous Relation is too well 
known to repeat except to underscore those features which the Iro- 
quois keep alive as weak images. He describes a summer ceremony 
in an arbor, although in winter it was performed indoors. The ritual 
addressed the sun, if not the eagle, like the Pawnee: naked priests 
stared at the sun through spread fingers held at arm’s length, and 
dancers pointed the pipe at the sun. Weather control is implied. 
Pipe bearers greet strangers and conduct them to the village, and 
at each village entered the honored guest is offered the pipe and is 
hand-fed four times. A special set of songs accompany the Calumet 
Dance, with drum and rattles. Single dancers take up the pipe in 
succession and“ . . . make it spread its wings, as if about to 
fly ...”. Part two is the Discovery Dance, described by Allouez, 
and which resembles Iroquois Striking-a-stick Dance. In part three, 
individual warriors one after another take up the calumet and recount 
war exploits, for which the conductor rewards the coup counters 
with presents of beaver skins. The calumet goes to a neighbor and 
finally to the honored guest. The Illinois calumet, the large feather 
fan, is attached to a red-stone pipe which is smoked, and the hollow 
stem is ornamented with the heads and necks of various birds—red, 
green, and other colors—the war calumet being predominantly red. 
As at Fox war-bundle feasts, the calumet, various dream objects 
which comprise the bundle contents, and weapons of war are dis- 
played on a mat where the honored guest is seated. The ceremony 
has its own officials, including a conductor and pipe messengers, and 


FENTON] TROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 183 


the role of singers falls to berdaches who occupy special seats but 
are not permitted to dance, a role reserved for warriors. Emphasis 
on pipe passing and smoking is absent from Iroquois, but in the end 
as in Iroquois Eagle Dance, Marquette, the guest, received the cal- 
umet, which had gone through the hands of boasting warriors, as a 
token of friendship. Thus the calumet became a symbol of peace 
and a passport. The ceremony was usually given to honor another 
tribe, and its principal symbol functioned to end disputes, strengthen 
alliances, and to speak to strangers (Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 54, p. 
191; vol. 59, pp. 115-187). 

Having accepted the calumet, the French soon found out how far 
the newfound passport would take them. La Salle met a similar 
ceremony among the Akansa and noted that calumets differ from 
tribe to tribe. The Akansa put up poles on which to display gifts, 
they seated the guests and chiefs near the middle, and the singers 
accompanied themselves with pot (water) drums and gourd rattles. 
Here is the first mention of a war post, planted in the center of the 
group, which the warriors struck with war clubs and counted their 
coups, but a liar risked having the pole wiped clean of his lies with a 
skin. Speakers made gifts to the recipient of the feast. Again I 
note considerable passing of the pipe. Elsewhere La Salle says that 
the Iroquois have no respect for the calumet and keep at an enemy 
until they destroy him, and he implies that the Iroquois had rejected 
such peace overtures from the Illinois. A still later account mentions 
corn soup at Akansa feasts (Margry, 1875-1886, vol. 1, pp. 553-554; 
vol. 2, p. 33; and Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 67, pp. 249, 251). 

In 1680, Sauk and Fox and various divisions of the Eastern Dakota, 
the Ottawa, Potawatomi, and probably those Chippewa living south 
of the Lakes, employed the calumet ritual for creating father-and-son 
relationships (Hennepin, 1880, pp. 105, 112-113, 190, 205, 208, 213, 
226-227; 1903, vol. 1, pp. 125-127; Perrot, in Blair, 1911, vol. 1, p. 
185). The Winnebago and Sauk honored the French commandant of 
Michilimackinac in 1721, and Charlevoix, an eyewitness, credits the 
Winnebago with a better performance. All of the participants were 
very young persons, including drummers, assistants with rattles, and 
dancers who were painted for war and were holding feather fans. 
The calumet had the honored place. ‘Orchestra and dancers were 
seated quite around, the spectators being placed up and down in small 
bodies, the women apart from the men .. . ,” as in Iroquois feasts. 
Between the honored guest and the singers, a post was erected for the 
warriors to strike. Near the end of each song a warrior would stop the 
dance by striking the post with his battle-ax; profound silence followed, 
and he proclaimed his achievements. The company applauded, but 
instead of wiping the post clean, he smeared ashes on the heads of liars. 


184 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


Charlevoix, who had read Marquette’s Relation, but who became 
quite bored before both tribes had gone through the ceremony, says 
specifically that the commandant was not placed on a new mattress, 
feathers were not placed on his head, and he saw no calumet presented 
to the commandant. Nor did he see any naked and entirely painted 
pipe-bearers. A description of the Dance of Discovery follows, end- 
ing with recitation of war records. Evidently the ceremony here was 
not as elaborate as among the Illinois (Charlevoix, 1923, vol. 2, pp. 
63-66). 

Meanwhile the Fox Indians had introduced the Calumet Dance 
among the Abenaki near Montreal, and since the Fox were the close 
kindred of the Sauk, whom Charlevoix observed, and later merged with 
them, the Fox Pipe Dance merits consideration. My analysis is 
based on the rich published and manuscript materials of the late Dr. 
Truman Michelson and the observations of Mrs. Kurath (p. 268), who 
saw the Fox perform the Pipe Dance at Rock Island, Ill. Historic con- 
tacts between the Fox and Seneca were frequent, and the number of 
correspondences between the Fox Pipe Dance and the Iroquois Eagle 
Dance is not surprising. Fox bundle feasts follow a consistent pat- 
tern of sequence, which also seems to be characteristic of Sauk, Kicka- 
poo, Prairie Potawatomi, Ottawa, Iowa, and Winnebago feasts, a dis- 
covery which we owe to Dr. Michelson (Michelson, 1928, pp. 545- 
546; Jones (Fisher, ed.), 1939, pp. 144-145, and references cited 
therein). The Fox pattern, moreover, is quite different from the Iro- 
quois feast pattern, and comparison requires wrenching the data out of 
context and rearranging them. This is one of the unsatisfactory 
aspects of comparative studies, since no two sets of ethnic phenomena 
are ever quite the same. 

Society emphasis is marked among Fox, and Eagle gens dominates 
membership in the Eagle Dance Feast, at which others “sit as chil- 
dren”’ to regard two feathered pipes, the emblems of the Eagles (Jones 
(Fisher, ed.), 1939, pp. 88-89, 97-98; Michelson, B.A.E. Ms. No. 
2756). 

Besides the Pipe Dance of the Eagle Society, the Fox have another 
rite called Wapanowiweni, which is exclusively for birds, who are 
presided over by four “‘great-grandfathers,”’ the sacred number, who 
reside at the four quarters, and correspond to the dual divisions of 
White and Red, generically similar to Iroquois (Michelson, 1932, pp. 
12-13). 

Besides a variant of the Roc myth, a hero dreams of a bird and is in- 
structed to tell the people, and public health depends on performing 
the rite of the pack (Michelson, 1932, p. 29). The Crow is a wise 
bird who knows medicines, and is grandfather and scout for the coun- 
cil of animals. 


Funton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 185 


Sixteen dancing songs, divided into four periods marked by drum 
beats, involve vicarious participation by eagles. The Eagle Dance 
is not described, but the songs show close correspondence with Iro- 
quois (see Kurath, this paper, p. 297). The dance in honor of the Eagle 
bundle resembles other Fox pack dances: shamans dance individually 
carrying Eagle fans in White Buffalo (Michelson, 1925, p. 11), and in 
clusters, women facing in one direction, and the men in one spot (Mich- 
elson, 1932, p. 121); and at their feast Eagles leave the dancing to 
guests. 

Fox bundles call for special handling (Michelson, 1928, p. 5); tobacco 
is used for supernatural mediation (Michelson, 1932, p. 9); two red- 
stone pipes, with eagle-wing fans, stand in a vessel (Michelson, 1929, 
pp. 97-98); and a ceremonial flute is blown to quarters. When dis- 
played, the bundle is not on a pole, but a feathered pole, which brought 
people through an ordeal, is erected at the door of a lodge and painted 
red (Michelson, B.A.E. Ms., No. 1850). 

Roc lives in a land of rocks, the winter home of birds, and Eagles 
are lured down with tobacco (Jones (Fisher, ed.), 1939, p. 22). 

The ceremony has two sides, givers and guests, and the Fox employ 
a headman or conductor, ceremonial runners and waiters, as do other 
central Algonquian and Siouan tribes (Michelson, 1927, pp. 2-3 for 
distribution; 1928, p. 4). Singers are appointed, and there are four 
dancers (like Iroquois) who symbolize world quarters, and the four 
similarly colored birds. Eagle Pack features pipe passing, but the 
tobacco offerings suggest Iroquois, and as in Iroquois False-faces and 
Pawnee Hako, pipes and fans are fed with grease. 

It is not clear that anyone presents fans, but speakers pray for long 
life, as do the Iroquois; nothing occurs on gift distribution, nor is there 
a song for laying down fans. Dog meat is the Fox feast food, but note 
that a hog head is now substituted and is used widely in the area (Mich- 
elson, 1928, p. 6; 1929, pp. 8-9). Summer meetings predominate. 
Color symbolism is marked as noted, four feathers being placed at 
cardinal points (Michelson 1928, p. 13; 1932, pp. 12-13). 

While it is not safe to compare ceremonies of different historic peri- 
ods, the analysis of Iroquois Eagle Dance correspondences with Fox, 
apart from the historic record of contact, would argue for an original 
connection between the two ceremonial complexes; but I judge that 
the Calumet Dance, in the course of being transformed to the Red 
Stone Pipe ceremony of the Fox Eagle Gens, has been fitted into the 
consistent pattern which guides all Fox bundle feasts, just as it has 
been adapted to the pattern which governs the medicine society com- 
plex of the Iroquois. 

If the first path of diffusion of the Calumet Dance led up the 
Ohio to the Iroquois through such tribal lmks as Pawnee-Iowa- 


186 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


Fox-Illinois-Miami, diffusion can also be inferred from a northern 
Mississippi River center, hypothetically located at the Pipestone 
Quarry near the Falls of St. Anthony, where surrounding hostile 
tribes met on neutral ground to mine catlinite. The quarry may be 
called the focus of the “peace pipe” concept, and just east of it lay 
Green Bay, the rendezvous of the “Far’’ Indians, certain bands of 
Chippewa and Ottawa, who were agents in spreading the use of the 
peace pipe eastward to the Iroquois between 1680 and 1725. From 
the same center, the westward drift of the Chippewa and Dakota 
during their wars produced a westward spread of the catlinite pipe 
and feathered stem presumably to the Plains Ojibwa, Assiniboin, 
Plains Cree, Blackfoot, and possibly the Cheyenne. It is in this 
northern Plains area where the Pipe Bundle Dance occurs, involving 
a bundle, a sacred pipe, and arite. That the Medicine Pipe Bundle 
and the Hako are distinct types of ceremonies was first seen by 
Wissler, to whom it appeared that the former prevails on the northern 
plains and the latter on the southern, and from the fact that the 
Teton Dakota have both (Wissler, 1912, p. 167). Diffusional in- 
fluences from the Hako area also passed overland from tribe to tribe 
as far as the Ottawa above the Straits of Mackinac and to the Sioux. 

A certain Ottawa chief received the honors of the calumet from 
the Sioux for saving prisoners from death at the hands of the Sault- 
eaux (Ojibwa), circa 1665. Perrot comments: 

The savages believe the sun gave it to the Panys, and since then it has been 
communicated from village to village as far as the Outaoiias. [Blair, 1911, 
vol. 1, p. 186.] 

It is said that the Illinois got it from the Pawnee, and the Sioux 
from the Illinois during their wars (Blair, 1911, vol. 1, p. 182). 

The Potawatomi and Menomini of Green Bay, Wis., followed the 
custom further south of carrying the honored guest on their shoulders 
(Blair, 1911, vol. 1, pp. 309, 311). Perrot who had wide expe- 
rience with the Calumet Dance received similar honors from 
the Iowa. Outside a village which was inhabited jointly by Miami 
and Mascoutin, he was greeted by pipe messengers, and while musi- 
cians kept singing, the dancers alternately bent their knees almost 
to the ground; they presented the calumet to the sun with the same 
genuflections, a feature which recalls Eagle Dance crouch. Where- 
upon the war chief raised Perrot on his shoulders and the whole 
troop of musicians conducted him to the village, where he was taken 
to the cabin of the Mascoutin chief (ibid., pp. 327-330). 

A degenerated form of the Calumet Dance persisted into the 
present century among the Menomini. Skinner notes several sur- 
vivals of comparative interest. When prolonged drought threatens, 
they sometimes give the contents of a bundle a somewhat sacrosanct 


Frnron] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 187 


airing on a pole, displaying a drum, gourd rattle, and eagle-feather 
fan (Skinner, 1915 b, pp. 206-207; 1921, pp. 60, 99, andpl. 11). The 
Tobacco Dance, so-called, is held to honor an ancient pipe; it has 
its own opening speech and songs, it features an individual dance 
contest, alternating with ‘‘brave’”’ dances, and is restricted to veterans 
of the Civil War. Each dancer carries a gourd rattle, but no pipe 
is mentioned. It is held usually in the open, sometimes indoors. 
Losers make gifts of clothing, or more appropriately red-stone pipes, 
to the winners, especially when an intertribal contest is held with a 
friendly tribe such as the Potawatami or Winnebago, and then a 
feast is held (Skinner, 1915 b, pp. 211-212). One of the important 
duties of Menomini chiefs, of whom one was pipe holder, was to 
prevent brawls attending a murder (Skinner, 1913, p. 24). Skinner 
and Wissler were among the first to note the widespread juridical 
function of the pipe holder among the Plains tribes (Skinner, 1918, 
28). 

For the Chippewa, there are two descriptions of the Calumet 
Dance from the first quarter of the nineteenth century by George 
Boyd and Peter Grant (Kinietz, 1947, pp. 92-94). These descrip- 
tions may be considered typical of the dance among the Chippewa, Ot- 
tawa, and Potawatomi (Kinietz, 1940, pp. 270, 325). The Chippewa 
baited a giant bird (Eagle) with deer, prizing its feathers (Kinietz, 
1947, p. 106). Grant distinguished the Discovery Dance from the 
Grand Calumet Dance, of which the southerly bands of Ojibwa claimed 
superior knowledge. The single dancer held the rattle in the right hand 
and in the left the war-pipe stem, from which depended a quarter 
circle of eagle-tail feathers. Kurath has analyzed his maneuvers. 
Passing the implements to the next person was esteemed a compliment 
and the succession of single dancers continued. 

The Sioux in the late seventeenth century still occupied much 
of Minnesota and Wisconsin, and the Jesuit Father Allouez called 
them “the Iroquois of the country beyond La Pointe,” and it is 
“they who chiefly adore the calumet,’’ they feast in silence and greet 
a stranger by feeding him with a wooden fork as one would a child 
(Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 54, pp. 191-193). But probably no one 
had more varied experience among the Eastern Dakota, the Iowa, 
and the Illinois or suffered more abuse in the name of the calumet 
than Father Hennepin, the Recollect. Emphasis on tears or cere- 
monial weeping on greeting strangers recalls the reception of visiting 
tribes in Iroquois Condolence Council and may tie in with the weeping- 
eye motif of the Southern or Buzzard Cult. They lay hands on the 
head and massage the legs of a visiting traveler. 

Hennepin saw successive dancers contest for honors. He men- 

982306—53——_18 


188 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLt, 156 


tions the gourd rattle and much pipe passing. The ceremony created 
father-and-son relationships with distant tribes (Hennepin, 1880, 
pp. 205-230). In the same year the Sioux who were at war with 
all others but the Saulteaux (Ojibwa) and the Iowa came to Mich- 
ilimackinac bearing calumets, they carried the honored guest about 
the village on their shoulders, and they wept over his head like the 
Iowa (LaPotherie in Blair, 1911-12, vol. 2, p. 31). 

How these performances of the Calumet Dance, so-called by French 
writers, tie in with the Medicine Pipe Bundle ritual of the northern 
Plains tribes, as described by modern ethnologists, and how the former 
seventeenth-century descriptions relate to the Hako type of Calumet 
Dance remains one of the unsolved problems of this study. It isa 
marginal problem, moreover, and leaving it as a legacy to later schol- 
arship does not affect the attempt to trace the historical roots of the 
Iroquois Eagle Dance. Whatever common traits were shared at first 
by the tribes west of Green Bay who first felt the influence of the Paw- 
nee Calumet Dance on their own sacred Pipe Dance, several centuries 
and the westward dispersion of tribes gave time and space for devel- 
oping distinct ritual patterns and complexes of traits which by the 
twentieth century appeared quite unrelated. Wissler and Lowie, whose 
knowledge of the northern Plains tribes will never be equaled, attrib- 
ute the Medicine Pipe Bundle ritual and the Pawnee Hako ceremony, 
despite superficial similarities which no doubt reflect borrowings, to 
separate sources. Wissler’s work with Murie on Pawnee ceremonies, 
after prolonged field work with Blackfoot and Dakota, commands re- 
spect for his comparative notes on the distribution of the Medicine 
Pipe Bundle; its distinction from the Hako; his general reservations 
about all smoking ceremonies not being calumet ceremonies; and the 
probably distinct origin of the Hako and the Medicine Pipe (Wissler, 
1912, pp. 165-168). The Blackfoot type of Medicine Pipe Bundle 
Wissler found distributed among Sarsi, Gros Ventre of Fort Belknap, 
Western Cree, on the authority of Mackenzie and Kane, and Teton 
Dakota; the Arapaho, Gros Ventre, and Cheyenne possibly shared the 
flat pipe of an analagous type (Kroeber, 1904, p. 308; 1908, p. 272; 
Dorsey, James Owen, 1884, p. 278); Wissler doubted that the Assini- 
boin had something similar, but Denig rather confirms it (Denig, 1930, 
pp. 446-448), and the Assiniboin borrowed from the Cree a crouching 
dance with rattles in mime of prairie chickens, which is probably unre- 
lated to Iroquois Eagle Dance (Lowie, 1909, p. 57; Skinner, 1914, p. 
531), and the Horse Dance utilized wing-bone whistle and pipe. 
Leaving the Pipe Dance to students of the northern Plains, let us take 
up the path of the Hako. 

From its center among the Pawnee the ceremony was carried up the 
Missouri to the village tribes presumably by the Arikara. The Omaha 


FanTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 189 


and the Osage had the ceremony after the Arikara (Fletcher and 
LaFlesche, 1911, p. 74), and the Iowa who claim to have originated 
it probably had it from the same source, if not from Omaha or Pawnee, 
while the Ponca, Oto, Kansa, and Caddo were in direct contact with 
Pawnee (Skinner, 1915 a, p. 706). Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa were 
all contiguous to the Pawnee on the west, but I find no clear-cut 
statements that they had the Hako, other than the Omaha tradition 
of the coming of the peace pipe (wa’wa’) from the Arikara. Omaha 
tradition maintains that the Arikara were the agents of spreading the 
ceremony to the Omaha, Ponca, Iowa, Oto and Cheyenne at a village 
then situated on the Big Sioux River, where the Arikara were found 
living a sedentary life later taken up by the Omaha. The Cheyenne 
later lost the rite (Fletcher and LaFlesche, 1911, pp. 47, 74, 376). 

The date for the appearance of the Hunka (or Hako) among the 
Teton Dakota is given in a calendar as about the year A. D. 1805, 
“when They Waved Horse-tails over Each other,’”’ which is what the 
Oglala call the ceremony (Walker, 1917, pp. 122-123). Sometime in 
the second half of the century, the Crow adopted ‘‘a Medicine Pipe 
Dance of the Hako type ...from the Hidatsa ...and the Hidatsa 
remember that their Medicine Pipe ceremony was in turn derived 
from the Arikara’”’ (Lowie, 1913, p. 150; 1915, p. 239). Just how the 
ceremony reached the Plains-Cree is uncertain, and Skinner’s descrip- 
tion fits the Blackfoot type of Medicine-pipe more nearly than the 
Hako (Skinner, 1914, p. 536; 1915 a, p. 706; Mandelbaum, 1940, 
p. 278). Surely it was the central Siouans and the Caddoans, the 
southern and western nations of Charlevoix, among whom the calumet 
was more ijn use “than among eastern and northern tribes, and more 
frequently for peace than for war,’ and, specifically, it was the Pawnee 
to whom “the sun gave the calumet” (Charlevoix, 1923, vol. 1, pp. 
304, 305). 

Of the central Siouans, the Omaha Calumet Dance is the best de- 
scribed, after that the Iowa, and the Teton Dakota version exhibits 
interesting differentiation. In the Omaha form of the ceremony War 
Eagle figures prominently, supplanting Corn in the Pawnee Hako, as 
the “Mother” tutelary of the rite. Otherwise the articles used and 
their symbolism is identical (Fletcher and LaFlesche, 1911, pp. 379, 
381). 

In this area Woodpecker replaces Raven as messenger for the birds 
and mythology connects him with the sun. 

A specific song accompanied by rhythmic movement of pipes is 
called ‘‘shaking or waving the pipes or feathered stems.’’ The whole 
ceremony is called wa"wa", “to sing for someone’ (Fletcher and 
La Flesche, 1911, p. 376.) 

Two dancers simulate the movements of eagles, but do not crouch. 


190 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156 


The stems taken up from the wildcat skin are waved to the rhythm of 
rattles shaken with an accented beat, and in this part no drum is used 
(Fletcher and LaFlesche, 1911, p. 383). Elsewhere, the Omaha use 
a water drum of partly hollowed tree; they know the Iroquis technique 
of tipping the drum to keep the skin head wet, and they beat with a 
rebounding rhythm (ibid., p. 371). In the part which resembles 
Iroquois Striking-a-stick Dance, the calumet is grasped in the left 
hand by the duck’s neck, the gourd rattle in the right, and the dancers 
follow the drum and pass backward and forward, imitating the actions 
of War Eagle, constantly waving the calumet and shaking the rattle 
in time with the drum (Long, 1823, vol. 1, p. 332). 

The paraphernalia comprises 2 feathered stems of ash which are 7 
stretches of thumb to tip of forefinger in length; the blue or female 
one has 10 mottled feathers; and the green or male has 7 white feathers 
which are war honors. At rest against red crotched sticks, head down 
on a wildcat skin, each stem has a decorated gourd rattle; there is a 
bladder pouch of tobacco; an eagle wing-bone whistle; three downy 
eagle feathers; and sweetgrass which completes the ritual equipment 
(Fletcher and La Flesche, 1911, p. 377). Ido not find that the bundle 
is displayed on a pole for weather control. Long saw a striking post 
(Long, 1823, vol. 1, p. 332). 

Ceremonial friendship as in Pawnee and Iroquois was its purpose, 
and the two parties, the one who presented the pipes and the recipient, 
assumed a father-and-son relationship. Analogous to the friendship 
pact created by the Iroquois Eagle Dance between a sick boy and his 
father’s clansman who had dreamed of him, the child in Omaha repre- 
sents the coming generations and often a generation separated him 
from his ‘‘father.’’ On one such occasion the Oto gave a child to the 
Pawnee, who mounted him on a fine horse and sent him back (Long, 
1823, vol. 1, p. 332). 

The sponsor sends a messenger bearing tobacco to fill a pipe which, 
when accepted and smoked, seals the contract, but may be courte- 
ously refused on grounds of poverty. Presumably there is a conduc- 
tor because the guest has two servants, his dancers. There is a crier. 
Singers and the two head dancers are obviously appointed (Dorsey, J. 
O., 1884, p. 277). Two young men of the party are chosen to perform 
the final dance (Fletcher and La Flesche, 1911, p. 399) ; they wear only 
breechclout. Drummer and singers sit in the middle, and the child, 
or honored guest, is with them, his head sprinkled with eagle down. 
Nearby are the two dancers wearing only breechclouts and both have 
the sign of the ceremony painted in red on their faces (Dorsey, 1884, 
p. 281). Each holds a wand in the left hand and a gourd rattle in the 
right. Otherwise no regular pattern of seating obtains. 

I am uncertain whether honored men present fans and rattles to 


FunTon) IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 191 


the dancers, but Long said striking the post, or touching one of the 
dancers was the accepted means of counting coup. A man would ad- 
vance and stop before one of the dancers who handed him the pipe, the 
music ceased, the man recounted his deeds and laid the pipe on the 
ground, which challenged other warriors to take it up and recount 
deeds of equal valor (Fletcher and La Flesche, 1911, p. 399). I gather 
from Long’s account that warriors had to validate their intention of 
striking by assembling horses and guns as gifts at the post, which was 
announced by the crier. The donor then struck the post, counted 
coups, and occasionally one would take the drum and beat out the 
number of his accomplishments, which stopped the ceremony and no 
one might touch the drum until another could top his record, where- 
upon the drum was returned to the performer (Long, 1823, vol. 1, p. 332). 
Presents at Omaha and Pawnee dances sometimes ran to excesses, 
but the ‘‘son” received the ritual equipment which he customarily 
gave away to those who had assisted him (Fletcher and La Flesche, 
1911, p. 400). Visitors also made presents to the hosts. Dorsey 
says that the child’s parents usually kept the sacred stems, and with 
them went the privilege of adopting others in the same manner 
(Dorsey, J. O., 1884, p. 281). 

The Omaha, too, had a special song for laying down the feathered 
stems; the rattles were attached to the wands, and the dancers simu- 
lated eagles settling on the nest (Fletcher and La Flesche, 1911, p. 384). 

The concept of the animal head does not appear, but I note the idea 
that wings brush aside evil. 

It was a summer ceremony of several days duration, with a special 
rite of putting the calumet to rest each night. Symbolism reached 
elaborate proportions, special colors standing for sex, sky, and earth, 
the moieties or tribes; and the innocent child represented the oncom- 
ing generations, peace and the contrast of the warlike spirit of the 
Plains. The design painted on the child’s face and on the gourds, 
which symbolize birds’ eggs, shows horizon, the path of the four winds; 
red face paint symbolized the light of the sun. Red woodpecker 
feathers are a sun symbol. Green stood for earth, blue for sky, and 
red for the sun and life. It all added up to peace and friendship 
(Fletcher and La Flesche, 1911, p. 380). The very spatial seating of 
the tribes met for this purpose constituted a focal force in Plains life 
counteracting the centrifugal tendency of factions and war. 

The Ponca had the same ceremony in a somewhat attenuated form, 
supposedly having received it from the Arikara with the Omaha. 
Dorsey said they were not fully acquainted with the dance and had 
only one pipe (Dorsey, 1884, p. 282), but in Skinner’s time they had a 
full bundle of two feathered wands, male and female, wrapped in a 
wildcat skin (Skinner, 1915 a, p. 789). The closing act, called “blessing 


192 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Buun. 156 


the child,” which was secret among the Omaha, was open with the 
Ponca, and differed in some minor details (Fletcher and La Flesche, 
1911, p. 401). 

If tradition can be trusted, and the Iowa acquired the Calumet 
Dance from the Arikara with the Omaha, the Arikara must have 
separated from the Pawnee, in the middle of the seventeenth century, 
and conveyed the ceremony a decade or two later, because the Iowa 
were reported already in possession of the ceremony by 1680 
(Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 60, p. 203; Blair, 1911, vol. 1, pp. 368-369). 
Father Louis André, who was among the Winnebago at Green Bay in 
1676, writes that they were visited by seven or eight families from a 
tribe called Aiaoua, who are neutral between our savages and the 
Nadoessi (Sioux); they inhabit a large village some 200 leagues west 
from Green Bay, and they are quite poor, “for their greatest wealth 
consists of ox hides and of Red Calumets’” (Thwaites, 1896-1901, 
vol. 60, p. 203). Possibly these same Iowa annointed Perrot with 
“saliva, snot, and tears” (for they were great weepers) when he visited 
their village situated some distance beyond the Mississippi at 43°North 
latitude. ‘Twenty prominent men presented the calumet to Perrot, 
and carried him on a buffalo skin into the cabin of the chief, who 
walked at the head of this procession . . .””. More weeping followed, 
after which he was presented the calumet again, and he was ceremoni- 
ally fed with pieces of Buffalo tongue, which he proceeded to spit out 
with the smoke from the calumet. The chief asked Perrot whether he 
would accept the calumet, ‘‘which they wished to sing for him .. . 
an honor . . . granted only to those they regard as great captains” 
(Blair, 1911, vol. 1, p. 369). 

The later-day Iowa had both the Calumet Dance and an Eagle 
Dance, which Skinner placed with his Forked-tailed Kite Dance (Skin- 
ner, 1915 a, pp. 706-709, 715-716; Catlin, 1844, p. 21). All three have 
traits in common with Iroquois Eagle Dance. Catlin’s Eagle Dance 
was a war dance in honor of eagle to whom the song appealed. Hach 
dancer imagines himself an eagle soaring. The dancers advance from 
behind musicians, hover, appear to stoop, and are blown back. ‘They 
carry whistles in hand and mime eagle cries (Catlin, 1844, p. 20). Hach 
dancer has a fan in his left hand made of an eagle’s tail (Catlin, 1852, 
pp. 17-18 in Skinner 1915 a, p. 716). Catlin’s term ‘‘ha-kon-e-crasse”’ 
strikes no response, but waio*ewaci, the Iowa term for Calumet Dance 
bears a tantalizing resemblance to Iroquois wa’e’no’e’’, Striking-a- 
stick Dance. Moreover, in Iroquois fashion, the mythical founder of 
Iowa calumet dance dreamt of two eagles, one white and one dark. 
Skinner further regards Catlin’s description as of an eagle cult, or one 
connected with a war bundle (Skinner, 1915 a, p. 717), and the Forked- 
tailed Kite Dance has therapeutic power. Two wand bearers dis- 


Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 193 


mount and dance in the Iowa Calumet Dance, halting four times on 
their way to the village, calumet in left hand, rattle in right. Both of 
the Iowa wands are male, they are perforated, a deer bladder painted 
blue holds tobacco, a forked stick supports the reclining calumet, and 
a wildcat skin spreads on the ground behind the crotched stick where 
two gourd rattles rest (Skinner, 1915 a, p. 707). In another paper, 
however, Skinner illustrates both male (white tipped with black) and 
female (dark feathers) wands, a tobacco bag of a buffalo’s heart, with 
buffalo wool and sweetgrass attached (Skinner, 1926, pl. 37). Display- 
ing the bundle on a pole and heaping tobacco beneath precedes Forked- 
tailed Kite Dance and suggests Iroquois, and in the Calumet Dance a 
special song accompanies the setting up of the forked stick in the lodge. 
A runner bears the tobacco bladder and the recipient becomes the 
adopted son of the donor. Catlin said the Eagle Dance was given to 
compliment a warrior, and to initiate friends to brother-and-sister 
relationships. The owners of the seven gens pipes delegate one of 
their number to conduct the one who wishes to make a friend. Early 
Iowa accounts mention pipe passing. Catlin says that to commence 
the Calumet Dance, the two sets of pipes and rattles are handed to 
the dancers by the greatest warrior present who boasts as he makes the 
presentation a fact of which the honored one may brag all his life 
(Catlin, 1844, p. 21 in Skinner, 1915 a, p. 709). And in Catlin’s ac- 
counts of the Eagle Dance, at the end of the song, without striking, 
warriors step forward, stop the dance, and count coups, which gives the 
dance momentum (Catlin, 1852, pp. 17-18 in Skinner, 1915 a, p. 717). 
All invited bring presents, some even sending gifts as an investment, 
in expectation of returns (Skinner, 1915 a, p. 708), for the honored one is 
expected to make handsome presents (Catlin, 1844, p. 21). The cere- 
mony lasts several days, ending with painting the sacred child who is 
ceremonially captured by warriors who rush the tent and count coups, 
after which he is returned to his kin bearing the wands (Skinner, 1915a, 
p. 709). Renewals are held over a period of four years, the magic 
number. Other details are lacking. 

The Oglala Division of the Teton Dakota were the highwater mark 
of true Hako diffusion on the northern Plains. The Sioux Hunka, 
first described by Curtis (1908, vol. 3, pp. 71-87) and with greater 
detail and authority by Walker (1917, pp. 122-140), is synonymous 
with Pawnee Hako; but ‘‘waving horse tails” has replaced ‘‘waving 
the feathered stems” in the minds of Dakota horsemen. We noted 
that dreams of eagles occur in Dakota folklore. The rite has its own 
songs, and two dancers are appointed to bear the two wands, stem in 
left hand and rattle in nght. I take it that the two Hunka wands are 
decorated and so named Horse-tails in lieu of feather tufts, and a 
rattle goes with each. Besides, Walker lists (p. 124), as provided by 


194 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLL. 156 


participants: an ear of corn, fire carrier, counting rod, scaffold, and 
drum; equipment provided by the conductor, a shaman, included 
the ceremonial pipe, buffalo skull, and fetish. He lists other materials, 
including sweetgrass, and paints (red, blue, yellow, and green), and 
other typical Dakota props. 

The Hunka relationship is one of ceremonial friendship and all 
the initiates share a name but they do not constitute a distinct society 
in the Plains sense. Like Iroquois, the relationship often overrides 
generations, and with a young boy requires parental consent. The 
conductor is a shaman, one entitled to paint his hands red, and the 
decision rests with him whether and how to compound the rite; 
pyramiding rituals is characteristic of Dakota. The conductor may 
also appoint a policeman; he appoints an assistant, and a register; and 
the two principals and their two friends who carry the messages agree 
on two men to have charge of the wands, a custodian of the ear of corn, 
and adrummer. Invitation wands are sent out. Much pipe passing 
precedes the ceremony, followed by symbolic capture; there is a meat 
offering, and the conductor waves the horse tails over the principals, 
an act which is supposed to have therapeutic power and to guarantee 
long life. Pronouncing them Hunka calls the sun to witness. It is 
an outdoor ceremony of several days duration. It is marked by 
exchange of gifts. And the use and connection of ceremonial red 
paint with sun, long life, and ‘‘good” reaches eastward to the Iroquois. 

From a Hako center among the Pawnee the fourth path of diffusion 
carried the ceremony down the Mississippi from the Pawnee and 
Osage to the Caddo and the Natchez, until it reached the Chitimacha 
on the Gulf of Mexico. From the Natchez or one of their neighbors 
the ceremony passed to the Creek, the Cherokee, and finally to the 
Catawba ina diluted form. From the southeast the calumet ceremony 
returned to the Iroquois in the hands of Catawba and Cherokee, as 
we have seen from direct historical sources. ‘The Shawnee occupied 
an enigmatic position between the Southeast and the Northeast, and 
their Eagle Dance had elements that reach to the Southwest, other 
elements reaching to the Iroquois, and still others to an ancient South- 
ern Cult. 

The Calumet Dance spread rapidly down the Mississippi within a 
few years following 1687. Two related causes contributed to the 
rapid diffusion of the rite and both were set in motion by the coming of 
the white man. The beaver had disappeared from the Iroquois 
country and the Indian traders soon backed up demands for peltry 
with raiding war parties which drove down the Ohio River to the 
Miami and Illinois and are credited with dispersing the Mosopelea or 
Ofo and other Siouan-speaking villagers who sought refuge further 
downstream (Swanton, 1946, p. 166). In fact, the Dhegiha group of 


Fen Ton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 195 


Siouans, comprising Omaha, Ponca, Kansa, Quapaw, and Osage, are 
supposed to have once been a single body living along the lower course 
of the Ohio (Swanton in Hodge, 1912, pt. 2, p. 156). More or less 
elaborate forms of the Calumet Dance are reported for the Ponca 
(Skinner, 1915 a, p. 789), and the Kansa (Skinner, 1915 a, pp. 759-760); 
the Osage knew the ceremony in elaborate detail late in the nineteenth 
century (La Flesche, 1939). By 1673, however, the Osage were 
located on the Osage River, so the removal from the Ohio got started 
ahead of the Illinois war of the Iroquois. If southern Siouans did 
not already possess the ceremony before the break-up, they acquired 
it soon after from Caddoan-speaking people. The second cause was 
the French themselves who carried the calumet for reasons of inviola- 
bility clear to Louisiana. It is not reported by members of the De Soto 
expedition, but LaSalle found it good among the Akansa, and Joutel; 
his companion, found the rite practiced by the Cahinnio, the Caddo 
tribe nearest to the Mississippi, but not by the Caddo tribes on the 
Red River beyond. When the French settled Louisiana, the calumet 
occurred among the Natchez, Chitimacha, Choctaw, and Chickasaw, 
and its use extended as far east as the Creeks, but with somewhat 
different significance, and the Cherokee had it soon after (Swanton, 
1928 a, pp. 702-703; 1946, pp. 546-547; Bourne, 1904, vol. 1, p. 41; 
Thwaites, 1896-1901, vol. 68, pp. 123 ff., 159, 161, 201, 203; Mooney, 
1900, p. 493). 

La Flesche described the Osage ceremony at the peak of his 
career, after gaining comparative knowledge from field work among 
related Siouan groups. The Wazha/’zhe or Osage, whose tribal name 
suggests Iroquois wasa’’se, War Dance, address their Wa’wa-tho’, or 
Peace ceremony to the spirits of birds—Golden Eagle, Pileated Wood- 
pecker, Mallard Duck, Owl, Cardinal, and Bluejay—who inhabit the 
clear sky, when the storm clouds of war and lightning abate, in times 
of peace. Raven does not figure prominently. The rite has a special 
set of songs, one movement being addressed to birds, and the order is 
preserved for singers by reference to two sets of mnemonics, rods and 
carved flat sticks, a typically eastern trait (La Flesche, 1939, pp. 213- 
214; Fenton, 1950). Two dancers simulate movement of birds, rattle 
in right hand and feathered stem in left, keeping strict time with the 
drum. ‘The dance ceremony corresponds to the final dance of Omaha, 
Ponca, Oto, and Pawnee (La Flesche, 1939, p. 246). Elaborate 
ceremony attends procuring the materials and making the ritual equip- 
ment (ibid., p. 206 ff.), which requires tail feathers of young and ma- 
ture eagles, down, a forked stick, fat, leaves of cattail, arrowshafts for 
pipestems, owl feathers, skins and heads of two pileated woodpeckers, 
and duck heads. The stem is of ash, painted green, and like Seneca 
wands is not perforated (ibid., p. 253); streamers of horsehair recall 


196 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


Dakota, and, as with the Omaha, the pipe is feathered with three wing 
feathers of eagle, which are split and tied, as in fletching Iroquois 
arrows; the Osage calumet fan has seven tail feathers of the golden 
eagle, and contrasted with Omaha and Pawnee pipes, Osage pipes 
appear crude (ibid., p. 255). Rattles resemble those of Omaha, one 
belonging to each eagle or stem, like the Pawnee. The wing-bone 
whistle is also part of the equipment. The ceremony of erecting the 
rack (ibid., p. 242) and setting up the pole for coup counting and 
tethering the gift horses compares with traits No. 8 and No. 9 of the 
Troquois (see p. 134). Making ceremonial friends in the father-and-son 
relationship is the avowed purpose of the ceremony of the Osage who 
preserved the intertribal character of the rite in an elaborate intra- 
tribal dual division symbolizing sky and earth. In all probability the 
former was a projection of the latter. Its vital principle extended to 
peaceful relations between the Osage and other tribes, and the Osage, 
Omaha, Ponca, Kaw, Oto, and Pawnee all practiced this rite (ibid., 
pp. 204, 251). The right to perform the ceremony carries the privilege 
of employing a “prompter’’ (conductor), and the preparation of the 
props, and the conduct of a composite rite entails considerable organ- 
ization. The servant or messenger obliges lovers by carrying and 
keeping secrets. Messengers also acted as clowns, mimicking domestic 
quarrels of the moment. All functionaries were appointed. Despite 
what earlier writers observed, La Flesche insists that striking the post 
and recounting war honors on these occasions were not practiced by the 
Ponca, Oto, Omaha, and Pawnee, although provision for counting 
coups was usually made (ibid., p. 243). Striking the post or shield 
hanging there was the Osage practice, and a warrior’s wife stood there 
to validate his honor with gifts. Presents were reciprocated by the 
sponsors. I note something resembling a song for laying down the 
feather fans (ibid., p. 216). Lacking, is the concept of the head, but 
ceremonial feeding of props with ceremonial fat occurs. Wings brush 
aside evil. They perform in summer for several days. Color and 
spatial symbols abound—north and south, sky and earth, blue and 
green—the dual divisions all mean enduring life; the number four; 
red paint and the woodpecker head mean the sun and perseverance; 
and the little red groove running the full length of each pipe is the 
path of the sun and of life; the crotched stick, where the pipes rest, 
represents elk horns, not the bird’s nest; and the whole ritual aims to 
control the weather, to create a clear sky, the habitat of happy birds, 
whose enjoyment symbolizes peace on earth. So strong is this cos- 
mic picture to the Osage that even poor replicas of the proper cere- 
monial equipment can recreate the proper significance of the ceremony, 
and Osages have been known to accept “pipes” or corn husk when 
offered with proper dignity and sanctioned with ritual. This is a 


Fanon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 197 


profound lesson for ethnologists since it goes far to explain the stabil- 
ity of Indian culture in the face of material change. 

The custom of greeting strangers with loud wails and weeping, which 
we noted for the early Iowa and Illinois, and in the Iroquois Re- 
quickening ritual, does not carry over to the nineteenth century per- 
formances of the Hako type of Calumet Dance, but it was certainly a 
habit of the Caddo and their neighbors in the late seventeenth cen- 
tury. De Soto was met by a weeping messenger of the Tula chief, 
Joutel was greeted by wailing women of the Hasinai, and even Mooney 
experienced being greeted with tears on his returns to the Caddo 
because ‘‘. . . he reminded them of those who had died since they 
last met”? (Swanton, 1942, p. 176). This preoccupation with death 
and the tendency to manifest grief may be a trait having stability 
since archeological times, as witness the weeping-eye motif of the 
Southern Cult. Carrying a guest into the village pick-a-back was 
accorded visitors to the tribes south of the Lakes. It crops up again 
among Caddo (Kadohadacho of Joutel) (Margry, 1875-86, vol. 3, 
pp. 404-406; Swanton, 1942, p. 178), and it leads logically to the use 
of litters among the southeastern Indians (Swanton, 1946, p. 598). 

Of the Caddo tribes only the Cahinnio had any knowledge of the 
true calumet of peace, according to Joutel, who in July of 1687 was 
met at the frontier by an Indian carrying a “‘sword ornamented with 
feathers and two hawk bells . . .” the noise of which he heard. 
Nearer the settlement a throng greeted him and conducted him to 
the chief’s cabin in the town, where a bearskin was laid down for him 
to siton. Presents were brought and exchanged with old men next day 
when he experienced the calumet ceremony for the first time among 
Caddo. La Salle had been mistaken about the ceremony of the pre- 
vious year among the Hasinai. Joutel gives the following order of 
events: a messenger bearing calumet led a procession of old men 
followed by young men and a few women singing to his door; they 
paused to sing and entered; they supported the guest and led him 
outside; at a prepared place, one put sweeterass under his feet, two 
others washed his face; he was seated on the skin; old men sat near 
the guest, and the conductor laid the calumet over a scaffold supported 
by a reddened crosspiece laid on two crotched sticks and covered 
with skins; men were singers joined by women and accompanied by 
gourd rattles; one was appointed to support and sway the guest with 
the music; for the first time we encounter two girls bearing gifts who 
are then seated so as to support the honored person’s limbs; a feather 
was placed in his hair; the ceremony terminates daily on whim of the 
guest who is supported back to his cabin to rest; the same processional 
starts the second day; ceremonial pipe passing first to the honored 


198 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


guest, then to others; and putting the calumet to rest each evening; 
and finally the pipe goes to the honored guest as a passport among 
allied tribes (Margry, 1875-86, vol. 3, pp. 416-419; Swanton, 1942, 
pp. 179-180). 

The Natchez form of the Calumet Dance, from Charlevoix, Du- 
Pratz and Le Petit—French observers of the early eighteenth century— 
has been described by Swanton (1911, pp. 123 ff., pp. 134-138). 
It bears certain resemblances to those described farther up the Missis- 
sippi, although Kurath classes it with a southeastern type, employing 
several dancers. Its war aspects are stressed as among the Iroquois. 
Natchez temples were decorated with wooden eagles, and were the 
point of departure and return of war parties. The leader erected two 
red posts, decorated the posts with feathers and war clubs, and indi- 
cated the mission with pictographs. Volunteers took emetics in the 
leader’s cabin, and the calumet of war hung on the door of the war 
chief during councils. Dreams were important augurs, and the leader 
carried a bundle which he hung at night on a pole inclined toward the 
enemy. DuPratz says the calumet of war was displayed on a pole 
outside the war council, that in declaring war, the Great Chief was 
consulted and matters of policy were cleared, for the opinion of old 
men always prevails, and some ancient and wise warrior might be 
detailed to lead a party bearing a calumet and without presents to 
state a wrong, to parley, and to initiate the drama of war. Invita- 
tions to friendly allies were issued by a messenger bearing a calumet 
of peace, which he describes (Swanton, 1911, p. 128). 

At treaties of peace, guests occupied honored places, a procession 
approached with singers shaking rattles, and six women came last. 
They stop, and, when invited, dancers approach the chief to wave fans 
over him, and rub him down head to foot. The calumet rests on 
forked sticks, while pipe passing goes the circuit. An appointed master 
of ceremonies conducts the rite, which takes several days. Home- 
town warriors strike a post and recount exploits, making presents to 
the ambassadors, who are then given the freedom of the town, and 
provisioned for their return (Charlevoix in Swanton, 1911, p. 134). 
Le Petit says that the great chief orders the master of ceremonies and 
all duties and expense fall on his subjects. Sweeping the plaza, as 
among the Pueblos, precedes the ceremony. 

The Chitimacha had the same type calumet ceremony as the Nat- 
chez, although Du Pratz mentions the use of flamingo feathers (Le Page 
du Pratz, 1758, vol. 1, p.118). There is little to distinguish Adair’s 
description of the Chickasaw ceremony, which Swanton also cites 
in his Creek report, except the swan’s wing; the person visited ap- 
points a half dozen youths as dancers to wave the fans of eagle tails. 
They dance in bowing posture, then raise erect, eagle tail in right hand, 


FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 199 


small gourd rattle in left, with which the dancer touches his breast, 
pointing the fan to heaven (Swanton, 1928d, pp. 238-239; 1928 b, 
pp. 442-443). Multiple dancers characterized this area. Feather fans 
were a common dance implement in the southeast. Besides those 
already mentioned, Yuchi, Creek, Chickasaw, Coasati, Catawba, and 
Cherokee used them (Speck, 1909, p. 52; Swanton, 1928 b, pp. 299, 442). 

The Choctaw had the same ceremony to all appearances. They ac- 
knowledged the Illinois country as the source of pipe stone (Swanton, 
1918, pp. 56-57, 66-68), but they also had an Eagle Dance, which im- 
pressed Catlin so much that he made a sketch and also left a descrip- 
tion (Swanton, 1931, p. 222). The dance was organized by young men 
to honor the eagle. A dozen or more young men, who painted them- 
selves white like neighboring calumet dancers, arose in groups of four 
to the beat of a tambourine drum and a wood rasp, brandishing weap- 
ons in right hand and the eagle-feather brush in the left. The jumps 
impressed Catlin as different from anything else he had seen, and he 
commented on the strain of the squatting posture, which he illustrates. 

Dancers of social dances in the Southeast generally painted a round 
red spot on each cheek like the Iroquois. Bird or Eagle sickness oc- 
curs among Creek, Chickasaw, Yuchi, and Cherokee and is usually 
associated with poisoning from bird lice contracted while procuring 
eagle feathers. A buzzard feather is the doctor’s sign, moreover, 
among Creek, Cherokee, and Shawnee, and the Iroquois probably de- 
rived their concept of giant crow from the carrion crow or black vul- 
ture of the Southeast. The Creek had a Buzzard Dance, and south- 
eastern doctors cry like ravens, but medicine societies as such, a 
generic trait of the Central Algonquians, apparently did not de- 
velop here (Swanton, 1928 a, p. 644; 1928 d, p. 267; Speck, 1911, p. 219; 
Mooney, 1900, p. 281; Speck and Broom, 1951 and correspondence; 
Voegelin, Shawnee Field Notes, and correspondence). ‘To balance the 
other comparisons, to bring this monograph down to date, to link the 
Southeast with the Iroquois, and to regain the perspective of modern 
ethnology, I end this comparison with an analysis of the Cherokee data 
of Speck, and field materials on the Shawnee Eagle Dance collected for 
me by Dr. Erminie W. Voegelin. 

Eagle Dance presents one of the more interesting parallels between 
the northern and southern Iroquoians. The studies of Mooney who 
first called attention to folk resemblances between these ancient lin- 
guistic relatives have since been supplemented by modern field studies 
of Cherokee ceremonialism by Gilbert (1943), Speck, and two of his 
students, Witthoft (1946) and Broom (Speck and Broom, 1951). The 
writer made a brief field trip to the Cherokee in the winter of 1946, 
gaining the quick impression that Cherokee ceremonialism is a thing of 


200 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156 


the past, which makes the living ceremonialism of the northern 
Iroquois all the more remarkable. 

The Cherokee Eagle Dance honored the Eagle for victory in war 
(Mooney, 1900, p. 496) and was held in recent years to celebrate win- 
ning the Ball Game (Gilbert, 1943, p. 263), and, as such, represents a 
survival from an older variant of the Calumet Dance. The eagle was 
the most honored bird among the Cherokee and a special class of 
eagle hunters braved the contamination of bites by bird lice which 
caused Eagle sickness (Mooney, 1900, p. 283; Witthoft, 1946 b, p. 
376). The dance was performed to welcome visitors and to welcome 
the dead eagle to town. Eagles were lured down to high places and 
were both trapped and shot, according to Will West Long. I am uncer- 
tain that Raven is messenger for the birds, but the “High Priest of 
War,” leader of the red organization, is sometimes called the Raven. 
He wore a raven skin and went forward to scout the enemy and gave a 
raven call of alarm (Gilbert, 1943, pp. 348, 353). Fourteen Eagle Dance 
songs are arranged in three periods or movements, involving a proces- 
sional formation, counterclockwise wheeling, trot, and a crouch. 
Speck has described these maneuvers and Kurath comments on them. 
The first period is Victory Dance, clearly related to the Scalp Dance 
of wider distribution; and the Eagle Dance is related to Iroquois and 
to the Calumet Dance. Speck disagrees with Mooney and says that 
Eagle Dance is never a means of curing sickness as among Iroquois 
(Speck and Broom, 1951, pp. 40-51). Fans and rattles are carried 
in right and left hands, evidently interchangeably (my own photo- 
graphs (pl. 28), and Speck’s and Gilbert’s). The bundle concept is not 
developed; the fan in the U.S. National Museum collected by Mooney 
has 12 feathers depending from a solid sour-wood stick (Mooney, 1900, 
p. 282, fig. 1), and my own photographs show five feathers with 
a bentwood spreader; Mooney gives seven, for the number of Gentes 
(Witthoft, 1949, p. 58; Speck and Broom, 1951, p. 39). And the mod- 
ern Cherokee dance wands have no pipe attachment, contrary to early 
descriptions and one illustrated in Catlin’s portrait of Black Coat 
(1836) (Witthoft, 1949). Skinner, in describing a Cherokee Eagle 
Dance fan in the American Museum of Natural History, notes the 
resemblance to Iroquois Eagle Dance wands along with other Chero- 
kee-Iroquois parallels (Lowie, 1910, p. 286). The bundle was not dis- 
played on a pole, and I find no mention of striped pole and beater, but 
the Uku’s standard was a long white pole with bird carved or painted 
on the top (Gilbert, 1943, p. 332). Tlanawa is Roc, but the bird ab- 
duction myth is not the origin myth of Eagle Dance (Witthoft, 1946 b, 
p. 376; Mooney, 1900, pp. 315-316). Gilbert found the dance func- 
tioning to provide a setting for releasing permissive joking relation- 
ships, and is no longer connected with removing contamination from 


Fanton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 201 


killing eagles (Gilbert, 1943, pp. 263, 284). Friendships sometimes 
ripen from these occasions, and the dance seems to be related to so- 
called Friendship dances (ibid, p. 257). A conductor picks the 
other functionaries and acts as caller. As with the Shawnee, dancers 
are the whoopers. Pipe passing punctuated eithteenth-century ac- 
counts by Timberlake (1765, p. 107), and Cuming (Williams, S. C., 
1928, pp. 125-126, 135). Honor attached to presenting eagle tails to 
visitors and frequently they were sent abroad to kings; the guest was 
massaged from head to foot with the fan, as among Muskogeans gener- 
ally. An even number of male and female dancers—4, 6, 12, 16 
(Mooney says 6)—parallels earlier descriptions for the Natchez which 
mention 6 females at the end of the line, but only men dance in the 
Victory Dance. A dancer may stop the song with a cry, leaping out in 
front and raising an elbow for attention, to boast. Boasting of war 
records has of late degenerated to teasing (Gilbert, 1943, p. 263; 
Mooney, 1900, p. 293). Gilbert comments: 

Not only do the familiarities of the sexual type find their best expression in the 
dances but also the familiarities of the ridicule-sanction type also seem to be 
brought out in fullest form . . . in Eagle and Friendship Dances. [Gilbert, 
1943, p. 284.] 

Will West Long said Cherokee dancers want a present beforehand; 
Iroquois dancers receive them after each song. I find no special song 
for laying down the feather stems, and a head is not passed. As in 
the north, however, killing frosts precede and terminate the proper 
ceremonial season and the rite is thought too strong for summer (Speck 
and Broom, 1951, p. 42); but Gilbert observed the dance in summer, 
although he noted the danger felt of snake bite or cold weather 
ensuing (Gilbert, 1943, p. 257). An evil omen attaches to dropping 
a fan. 

The Cherokee Eagle Dance would have long since disappeared but 
for the activity of Speck and certain ethnologists who kept the people 
of Big Cove supplied with imported feathers (Gilbert, 1943, p. 367). 
How considerable has been the change in Cherokee ceremonials is 
apparent from a comparison of the preceding modern accounts with 
traditional accounts of the Seneca-Cherokee Peace by Seneca and 
Cherokee informants and with the descriptions of eighteenth-century 
travelers. 

Between the Cherokee and the Iroquois during much of the eighteenth 
century lay two Algonquian-speaking tribes who were horticulturists 
and hunters, the Delaware of eastern Pennsylvania and the Shawnee, 
probably the most mobile tribe in America. The Delaware, who were 
first met at Philadelphia and ranged between Jersey and the State of 
their name, drifted westward in a series of land sales and removes 
which marked the advancing frontier, trekking from their own river 


202 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


to the Susquehanna, to the Allegheny, and to the Muskingum, north of 
the Ohio. The Munsee of New Jersey ended their migration among 
the Six Nations in Canada, the Ohio groups going to Indian Territory. 
Whether the Delaware had originally an Eagle Dance or a full Calumet 
Dance is uncertain, but certain elements of both survive in the 
ethnological literature. 

Most like the Iroquois Eagle Dance is the Nighthawk Dance, noted 
by Speck among the Munsee-Mahican of Six Nations Reserve, Canada 
(Speck, 1945, pp. 76-78). It was performed semiannually at the Bear 
Sacrifice Ceremony (Midwinter) and at the Green Corn Feast, usually 
on the last night, in honor of the Nighthawk, whom the Delaware call 
Pickwolane’o, or Pick’, which is how the Algonquians hear the boom- 
ing sound, thinking that the bird breaks wind in flight. The sound is 
connected with the myth of thunder (Speck, 1946, p. 256). This 
interpretation takes on significance in relation to the bird-anus motif 
of the Southern Cult. The organization of the dance resembles the 
Cayuga variant of Iroquois Eagle Dance: Two to four dancers, rattles 
in right hand, fans of individually suspended feathers in left, water 
drum and cow-horn rattle, and the same crouching posture with jumps. 
A round red spot is painted on each cheek. Speakers appealed for 
long life and social welfare and made presents to the dancers. The 
speaker interrupted the dance by striking on the floor. Speck comments 
that the Delaware account lacks the curing function of the Iroquois 
medicine society which he studied among the neighbormg Cayuga of 
the same reserve. Sweeping the Big House or ceremonial chamber 
with an eagle wing ties in with Iroquois council fire symbolism, the 
great white wing which brushed aside evil from the mat of the law 
(Speck, 1931, pp. 23-24, 101-103). In Oklahoma, the Delaware 
Peyote Cult equates a mound of earth with the eagle’s body, plants 12 
sticks, 6 on a side, and burns them, the stubs being reminiscent of the 
tail feathers (Speck, 1931, p. 62; Petrullo, 1934, pp. 152, 162-164, 169). 
Peyotism has gained but a one-time adherent among tbe Iroquois. 
The significant fact is that the Delaware revered the eagle and held the 
Nighthawk to symbolize the antagonism between peace and aerial and 
terrestrial warfare (Speck, 1946, p. 256). 

By contrast the marginal Naskapi, Algonquian hunters of Labrador, 
have no such legends or ritual connected with serpents or tortoises, or 
any of the birds associated with Eagle Dance complex—raven, eagle, 
or hawk (Speck, 1935, p. 80). 

The Delaware and Iroquois had already exchanged stone-headed 
peace pipe with wing attached to a cane shaft by the second decade of 
the eighteenth century (Hanna, 1911, vol. 1, pp. 101-102), which the 
Delaware had accepted to show to other tribes as evidence of their 
subjection to the League. In showing the relic to the Governor and 


FEnTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 203 


Council in Philadelphia on June 14, 1715, they opened “‘the Calumet 
with great ceremony of their rattles and songs,’ passed the pipe to all 
dignitaries present beginning with the English moiety, and then put it 
up with the same ceremony. The point is that the Delaware had 
come east from Ohio country where they maintained continual contact 
with the Shawnee, Miami, and other mobile central Algonquians, 
gradually drifting west themselves ahead of the frontier. They had 
ample opportunity to learn the Miami version of Calumet Dance and 
Eagle Dance too, if that were distinct. The French and Indian War 
scrambled the Indian population of western Pennsylvania so that in 
1767 Zeisberger could report the presence at his mission town of 
Goschgoschink, a Munsee town where the Geneseo Seneca had re- 
settled refugee Indians, of such diverse ethnic entities as Cherokee, 
Fox, Mahican, Shawnee, Missisauga, Nanticoke, Chippewa—mostly 
Algonquians of one kind or another—and even a “‘baptized Jew from 
New England” (Deardorff, 1946, pp. 6-7). This one refugee town 
provided a setting for the transmission of Eagle Dance from Fox, 
Chippewa, or Cherokee to the Munsee and Seneca who were settled 
in adjacent towns up the river. 

One division of the Shawnee who formerly lived in the Ohio Valley 
and now live i Oklahoma formerly had an Eagle Dance, which is 
quantitatively much like the Seneca form, but lacks several significant 
traits, and possesses still others such as Eagle suits which may have 
reached Oklahoma from the Rio Grande Pueblos. The following 
analysis is based on original materials collected for me in the field by 
Dr. Erminie W. Voegelin of Indiana University from a much longer 
checklist of over 50 traits which I submitted to her in 1936-37. The 
material is here published with grateful acknowledgment. 

The one division held the Eagle Dance separately. It is addressed 
to Eagle who gave the rite to the Shawnee. Roc carried off a man 
in a hollow log, and the man beat the bird on the head to get home 
and institute the dance. Three kinds of eagles are distinguished and 
associated with directions. A preliminary feasting of birds resembles 
the Seneca method of luring down birds. Shawnee take the third 
bird, the bundle is there open, and it is later hung on a pole or tree 
limb. There was no society of those who had been cured of Eagle 
sickness, or epilepsy, which is caused by wearing untreated feathers or 
being bitten by bird lice. No ceremonial friendships arose through 
the rite. The bundle contained 12 feather coats for the dancers, 
which recall costumes still used in the Pueblo area, besides tobacco, 
4 tail feathers, a raven wing—the doctor’s emblem as in the South- 
east—a drum hide and stick, and 1 gourd rattle. There were 12 songs, 
12 dancers, and women might watch. Dancers crouched and cried 


982306—53——_14 


204. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ Bunn. 156 


like eagles and picked up objects in their mouths like Onondaga 
dancers, but the dance more nearly resembled Catlin’s Choctaw Eagle 
Dance than the Iroquois variant, since the Shawnee dancers rest 
squatting. (The Iroquois dancers perch on chairs, although I never 
inquired what they perched on, if anything, before chairs came to 
them.) Raven is messenger, bundle chief, and priest, and conducts 
the ceremony; there is no whooper, but the 12 dancers cry like eagles; 
and the conductor appoints 4 singers, and the dancers. The tobacco 
offering is not burned, and pipe passing is absent, and no honored old 
men present fans and rattles to the dancers. There is no striking 
post and beater, and recitation of war records belongs to another 
dance, and no fans are waved in the dance or laid down with special 
song. Four is the sacred number, circuits are counterclockwise, meet- 
ings are held toward spring, and the rite lacks sex and color symbolisms 
of the Calumet Dance of the Hako type. 

In the list of 25 peculiar features of Iroquois Eagle Dance but 5 
outright negatives occur in the Shawnee data—absence of pole and 
beater, friendship, feather fans, and a song for laying them down. 
No head is passed. Tobacco is not burned but offered dry, and 
the dancers cry; there is no whooper. Yet Shawnee Hagle Dance is 
sufficiently differentiated from Iroquois to have a special quality of its 
own. (Voegelin and Fenton, in press.) 

At the close of such a study one is tempted to speculate on a possible 
remote connection through a putative ancient Eagle Dance which 
would tie together the full-suited wheeling Eagle Dance of the Pueblos 
and the Eagle Dance of the northeastern Indians, which are quite 
different. The history of the Iroquois Eagle Dance which I have 
traced with available evidence to the Hako type of Calumet Dance 
gives a picture of cultural stability over several centuries. The Hako 
complex was approaching a climax form when discovered by the 
French in the seventeenth century. Such a vigorous ceremonial insti- 
tution must have had roots of its own leading into prehistoric times. 
I think that these roots lead logically to the archeological literature 
on the Southern Death or Buzzard Cult, so named by the archeolo- 
gists who view culture history from the remote past forward, but 
which I think can be reclothed with ethnological reality when time 
is reversed. Is the complex which underlies Hako what is known 
archeologically as the Buzzard Cult? (Martin, Quimby, and Collier, 
1947, pp. 361-366.) 

First of all, the two complexes occur in the same general area, 
although the Death Cult is more common east of the Mississippi River 
than west, but Spiro Mound is in the heart of the Caddo country, 
and some of the tribes with whom the Calumet Dance is associated 
were living farther east at the dawn of history. The Death Cult is 


Funton]} IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 205 


supposed to have flourished about 1600 (Ford and Willey, 1941, p. 358) 
and to have lasted until after 1700, which clearly overlaps the known 
period of Hako. Whether or not the two complexes are related, they 
share a number of traits in common, which I shall now regard from 
the viewpoint of history and ethnology. 

The Hako was held to honor eagles and other birds—duck, hawk, 
owl, pileated woodpecker, and some lesser birds—who were cosmic 
symbols and could be appealed to for controlling weather, alleviating 
sickness, creating friendships, and making peace. Peace and war 
were but two facets of male aggression in Indian society and so the 
ritual of one merges into the other; so do the symbolisms. Among 
the eight motifs analyzed and discussed by Waring and Holder 
(1945, p. 3), I wish to comment on the Sun Circles, the Bi-lobed Arrow, 
the Forked Eye, the Open Eye, and the Barred Oval. The circular 
pallettes of stone remind me of catlinite disks which were brought by 
Indians from the Upper Lakes to Onondaga in the mid-eighteenth 
century; restoring the sight of the sun to the bereaved relatives of the 
dead chief constitutes the burden of the eighth message in the Requick- 
ening Address of the Iroquois Condolence Council, a ceremony very 
much concerned with death; and Pawnee mythology ascribes the Hako 
to the sun. The sun cult was widespread and occurs in many con- 
texts, as is well known. Could the Bilobed Arrow, thought to sym- 
bolize an Eagle-being, stand for the calumet? Weeping and wailing 
on greeting strangers crops up from the Caddo area, among Central 
Algonquians, and among the Iroquois it is ritualized in the reception 
ceremony at The Woods’ Edge in Condolence Council. Hither the 
Forked Eye or the Open Eye may represent weeping or clearsighted- 
ness which goes with clearmindedness when the ceremony has done 
its job. The bereaved whose minds were downcast are now requick- 
ened. The Barred Oval or Anus Motif, which usually occurs in art 
forms beneath the tail of the woodpecker, may relate to the wide- 
spread Algonquian folk belief that the Nighthawk and Thunderbird 
break wind in flight. Speck has called our attention to this motif 
in papers already cited and in conversation. 

Some of the decorations on the feathered stems of the Hako, notably 
the heads of mallard ducks, bring certain archeological specimens to 
mind. Linton first called my attention to bird-effigy pipes from 
Ohio-Mississippi drainage, and in particular one pipe irom the Hope- 
well Group is carved to represent the intertwined necks of ducks 
(Shetrone, 1930, p. 159). 

Besides the abstract motifs, the prehistoric ceremonial complex 
yields full-scale delineations of Eagle and Pileated Woodpecker, whom 
Omaha mythology made messenger of Sun and leader of the forest 
birds, as duck was leader on water, owl at night, and Eagle dominated 


206 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


the sky birds. Anthropomorphic eagles, moreover, may represent 
either eagles appearing to men in dreams or men mimicking eagles in 
ritual. One who has seen the Eagle Dance in the Pueblos is struck 
by the near resemblance of some of the Spiro illustrations (Waring 
and Holder, 1945, p. 20, fig. 5, b). The masked dancing Eagle War- 
rior with head trophy and baton, which again is the Bilobed Arrow 
(possibly a calumet symbol) (ibid., fig. 5, a; Ford and Willey, 1941, p. 
358), more nearly resembles the Striking Dance which is the third 
part of the Calumet Dance. The concept of the head connects with 
the war complex and is replaced by the rattle in the peace ceremony. 
Without stretching these parallels beyond the limits of the data, I 
believe the preoccupation with feathers, bird claws, and the above 
symbols puts the Calumet Dance in the direct line of descent from the 
ceremonial complex in the southeastern United States which is known 
as the Southern, Death, or Buzzard Cult. While not accounting by 
any means for all the riches which the archeologists have placed 
systematically at the disposal of the ethnologist, I have hinted at some 
other institutions known to ethnology such as the Iroquois Condolence 
Council, the Tutelo Adoption Rite, and the widespread Feast of the 
Dead which may on similar examination reveal other connections 
between ethnology and archeology in the eastern United States. In 
risking criticism for trying to establish these connections I wish to 
acknowledge the stimulus of one archeologist who provided the lead 
(Krieger, 1945, pp. 495-496). I trust that this monograph may con- 
tribute something to the solution of a fascinating problem. 


CONCLUSIONS 


The present study of the Iroquois Eagle Dance, an offshoot of the 
Calumet Dance, warrants some conclusions, a few of which are posi- 
tive and several of which must remain tentative; and the study raises 
still other problems which may warrant new research. 

First, some general considerations call for comment before drawing 
conclusions. I believe that the research has justified the viewpoint 
maintained throughout this study that culture is significant behavior, 
existing on several levels of abstraction. These levels range from 
patterns of individual participation in local society, to patterns of local 
society as affected by the participation of individuals, now dead, who 
have contributed consciously to innovations and unconsciously to 
drift, to patterns of tribal society which several related communities 
share in common, making due allowances for diversity arising from 
separation in time and space, and finally to culture complexes of wide 
areal distribution which rephrase and reorder the same culture traits in 
accordance with those local and tribal patterns which are the guides 
to what is significant in local experience. Secondly, every individual 


Fanron] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 207 


in final analysis has a culture of his own which the ethnologist can 
observe and study through the participation of that individual in 
local society, his interaction with other personalities, and his life 
history, which is confined to the narrow limits of a single generation 
to which the ethnologist most frequently belongs. From such obser- 
vations of participation the ethnologist constructs local patterns of 
culture which he then proceeds to check with informants for general 
significance. Discrepancies between native theory and practice arise 
in this area of inquiry. 

The structure of society and of ceremonies is built of such patterns. 
But a completely functional study of the interaction of the patterns of 
a culture at a given point of time, while transcending individual partic- 
ipation, does not explain culture as such or the survival of the Iroquois 
Eagle Dance. The answer to such truly cultural problems lies in 
history. 

History has its levels too. Individuals are the carriers of culture 
and the makers of history, but an individual’s culture is a matter of 
biographical selection, it is a product of his unique history in local 
society, and he in turn may alter slightly the course of local history. 
By observing closely how individuals manifest the local culture, how 
various types of personality find expression in that culture, and how 
the culture grants premiums to certain culturally sanctioned personal- 
ity types, we gain some idea of how the learning process proceeds and 
how change and stability operate. At various times persons entrusted 
with preserving ritual have effected changes in its form or content 
which have enabled the ceremony to survive as an institution in the 
modern world. Handsome Lake is the most conspicuous example 
among the Seneca, but we have noted other slight changes by modern 
innovators. Pattern imposes limits and tolerances for individual 
behavior, however, and the range of expectable and permissive 
behavior has been developing during the long history of the local 
group and the tribe. Save for the slow process of drift, pattern makes 
for stability. It enables a ceremony like Eagle Dance to go on despite 
minor innovations and substitutions within its framework. Cere- 
monies, moreover, are group phenomena, and the individual enjoys 
participating in them. He enjoys performing the same ceremony 
again and again, and if he is an Indian he delights in the rhythmic 
repetition within the ritual, a phenomenon which Goldenweiser called 
involution, and which contributes to compounding the same pattern 
by a process of projection into larger wholes without losing the original 
design. Persons living in such cultures develop a tremendous capacity 
for boredom, an ability to take the long view, to enjoy the long cycle of 
songs with very slight alteration in the stanzas or the melody. The 
individual Indian cherishes the variant of his home locality and he 


208 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156 


accommodates to other variants only to the extent that they are related 
or can be related to his own. So what the individual says and does is 
deeply rooted in his people’s past. 

The second level of history lies in the past which in ethnological 
studies is reached through the intensive study of the present. The 
archeologists have called this method the direct historic approach, 
and it has the virtue of proceeding from the known to the unknown in a 
scientific manner, but I have termed my own version of this method 
‘“upstreaming”’ because it travels against the current of time. I 
believe that its use here is justified, and that the present study would 
not have yielded significant results had I followed history chrono- 
logically. Upstreaming is the method of ethnohistory. 

History has a third level, a spatial or distributional aspect, the study 
of which may be pursued directly with documentary evidence when such 
is available. Ethnologists have frequently assumed that history was 
not forthcoming on the American Indian and have consequently made 
a virtue of indirect methods. Wherever the historical literature and 
archival materials can be found and combined with an abundant 
ethnological record the methods of direct history should be followed 
and balanced with the indirect methods of inferring history from com- 
parative reconstructions. A people are always affected by the history 
of surrounding peoples, and cultural phenomena like the Eagle Dance 
seldom occur in geographical isolation, since from time to time innova- 
tions reach the second society through exchange of persons in wars, in 
peace embassies, and marriage. Warriors, ambassadors, husbands 
and wives, and the wandering male introduce new customs, new 
ceremonies, new songs, new dances, a new kind of rattle or drum, new 
techniques—which are usually adopted and rephrased to fit local 
patterns of culture. This theory, in my estimation, fits the cultural 
history of the Eagle Dance and its relation to the Calumet Dance. 

The following positive conclusions emerge from the study. 

(1) The meetings of the Seneca Eagle Dance Society, which I have 
attended and observed repeatedly at Coldspring, are unique perform- 
ances depending upon who is invited and how the guests react to each 
other. 

(2) The speeches at Eagle Dance meetings reflect segments of 
biography which are channeled through an old pattern that comes 
down from the custom of boasting on war records, and the present 
speeches function to cheer sick persons, to drain off aggression in a 
sanctioned manner, and to promote local group ésprit. 

(3) Observations and inquiries made in other Iroqouis communities 
contirm the preceeding conclusions and give breadth and depth to the 
study. 

(4) The Seneca Eagle Dance has its own paraphernalia and a unique 


FmNnTON] TROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 209 


ritual pattern, and its own set of songs which appear to have been 
borrowed by the other Longhouse Iroquois. Tonawanda is most like 
Onondaga and Six Nations. Kurath reaches similar conclusions from 
music and the dance. 

(5) The unique local pattern of Eagle Dance meetings fits into a 
standard ritual pattern for Iroquois medicine societies, which governs 
all of Iroquois ceremonialism. 

(6) The thorough study of a ritual complex requires probing all the 
roots leading to the past: folklore, personal experiences, dreams which 
are so important to Iroquois, the examination of museum collections of 
material culture, the analysis of ritual organization and a study of its 
precedents in the history of the society, and an analysis of the patterns 
of sequence which control the program. The study of a major activity 
in culture touches almost every aspect of that culture. 

(7) Traditional history pointed leads which were followed and con- 
firmed with documents. The traditional history of the Iroquois- 
Cherokee peace has a basis in fact. But documentary history 
uncovers other paths which tradition has forgotten and these lead to 
the times and places of contact and sometimes verify the actual 
transfer of cultural complexes from tribe to tribe. The trail of the 
Iroquois Eagle Dance, which leads traditionally to the Cherokee, 
leads historically up the Lakes to the Far Indians of Green Bay, down 
the Ohio to the Miami and Illinois who had the Calumet Dance. 
Miami, Illinois, Fox, Chippewa, Ottawa, Shawnee, Cherokee, and 
Catawba all made direct contact with the Iroquois. The Iroquois, 
who lacked the Calumet Dance in 1680, received one after another of 
these tribes at Onondaga, and by the middle of the eighteenth century 
they had been honored by Calumet ceremony enough times to have 
acquired it themselves. 

(8) Direct history of itself is not enough, for the ethnologist must 
make certain in diffusional studies through an analysis and comparison 
of two sets of cultural phenomena that the two are comparable and 
are generically related. Kurath’s and my own independent studies 
of the history and ethnology of the Calumet Dance reach the common 
conclusion that historically the Iroquois Eagle Dance is derived from 
a variant of the Calumet Dance. Musically it seems closest to Fox, 
ethnologically it has much in common with Cherokee and Shawnee, 
but all of these modern forms appear to stem from the Miami and 
Illinois forms which in turn are derived from an ancient Caddoan 
prototype, of which the Pawnee Hako is the climax form. 

(9) Seneca, Cherokee, Fox, and Sioux are the differentiated twen- 
tieth-century survivals; Shawnee, Iowa, Omaha, Pawnee, and Osage 
lasted late into the nineteenth century; Natchez and Miami are 
eighteenth-century forms, for which time we have Cherokee and Catawba 


210 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


records; Illinois-Miami-Potawatomi-Iowa are the seventeenth-century 
links through Pawnee to Caddo; and beyond that point archeology 
takes over with a putative Buzzard or Southern Cult, which I should 
like to rename the Eagle Cult, a pan-Indian phenomenon which has the 
weeping eye, the buzzard, eagle, woodpecker, sun, and other symbol- 
isms of the Calumet complex. 

(10) The Roc myth and the practice of eagle trapping have even 
broader distributions, the former reaching far into the Northwest, the 
latter into the Southwest, and both cover the riverine distribution of 
Calumet Dance, and if the myth and the hunting of eagles do not tie 
directly to the ceremony under investigation in all cases they at least 
reflect the broad preoccupation of American Indians with the eagle 
as a symbol of war and peace. 

Finally, in all the strife and warfare that characterized aboriginal 
America, it is important to underscore the Indian’s identification of 
peace with birds and related life forces in nature. Although Indian 
society was rent with feuds and factions it also had developed some 
focal factors like the Calumet Dance which stabilized affairs by pro- 
viding a means for draining off aggression generated internally and 
stopping intertribal wars. The kinship principle became the basis for 
creating ceremonial friendships within the tribe, between members of 
different clans, between moieties, and dual divisions of confederacies, 
and we find that wherever such mechanisms developed nonaggression 
followed. People did not fight the communities with whom they 
played ball or with whom they had made a pact of friendship through 
the Calumet Dance. Indian society was reaching for a mechanism 
for extending the peace, and the Europeans avidly seized on it. Such 
political experiments in simpler societies merit further study. 


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Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 219 


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982306—53——15 


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222 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLL. 156 


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BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 2 


a ees tier” al 


The household of Resting-sky. 


Back row: Resting-sky and Voice-above. Center: It-dips-water; and (front) her grandson. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 3 


Sherman Redeye, Snipe Clan, Coldspring Seneca informant. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 4 


Clara Redeye, Voice-above, Hawk Clan, interpreter, at Coldspring. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 


“ 7 


It-dips-water, Hawk Clan matron, wife of Resting-sky, Coldspring Seneca. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 6 


Eagle Dance in 1942 for Big-canoe and He-carries-an-ax. 


1, Wood-eater puts tobacco in the fire. 2, On the last song the dancers lay down the feather 
fans. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 


Eagle Dance in 1942. 


1, The second round of speeches for Dew Eagle. 2, The dancers crouch and sway with the 
songs. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 8 


Eagle Dance in 1942. 


I, Passing the pig head and crying like crows. 2, Members carry home pails of corn soup. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 9 


Wood-eater, Bear Clan, Seneca ritualist at Coldspring. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 10 


Corn-husker, Hawk Clan, Seneca of Coldspring, and his two pet hawks. 


‘asnoysuo’] epurMmeuo 


h 


01 BulidspjoD woly saivsajap sv ‘adessow saye'] awOspury] JO suvipiensd ‘uv[o seq] ‘Yy91019-e-ul-paspol-youg pur ‘urd 1vag ‘saouvs-A]UaM J, 


red 


x 


Ik ALV1d 9S NILATING ASOTONHLA NVOIYSAWY AO NVvVSaYHNs 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 12 


Snorer, Hawk Clan, Seneca of Coldspring. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 13 


Hemlocks-lying-down, Turtle Clan, conductor and singer of Seneca ceremonies at Coldspring. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 14 


Earth-hiller, matron of the Wolf Clan, Coldspring. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


pee 


BULLETIN 156 PLATE 15 


Helper, Sachem chief of the Bear Clan, Tonawanda Seneca. 


‘epeuey ‘aAlasay SuOTeN XIG ‘UOSqIX) UOSTUIG pue fesepuoUG ‘uRsOT ydesof jotrya ‘Z 
‘powlag [elope ayi Jo owinysoo ay} ul ‘Auedwoyd oursipayy oy} JO 9]37 eI panos YIM Yst]eNILT BIW “UPS adiug ‘saysni-sy}-sox111s-9F] ‘7 


t 


91 3ivid 991 NILATINGA ASDOIONHLA NVDIYAWYV AO NVSaHNEa 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 17 


Djido’gwas, a Seneca of the Wolf Clan, at Coldspring. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 18 


Yankee Spring, a Seneca of the Beaver Clan, at Tonawanda. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 19 


Sarah Snow, Seneca of the Bear Clan, Coldspring’s clairvoyant and herbalist. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 20 


Eagle Society Bundles. 


1, Fans and gourd rattles from the bundle of Hemlocks-lying-down. 2, An old set of fans in 
New York State Museum. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 21 


Striped emblem pole of Eagle Society, displayed for a meeting of the Society. 


(Courtesy New York State Museum.) 


(‘ydeigojoyd unasnyy o1qng syne) 


“eI9UIS snsneieiies) woly SuBy Poets Bof-OAT 


e2@ ALW1d 991 NILATING ASOTONHL]A NVOIMAWY AO NVayena 


*s1aZUIS BUC] 9[3e x IOF INO pre] “Bulidspjod fo ay AA VuUaIe|D Aq ‘opeI UIOY pur UINIP IdIe AK 


€¢ 3A1V1d 9Sl NILATINGA ASOIONHL]A NVOIYAWY SAO NVvaHna 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 24 


Horn rattles: Left, two by Hemlocks-lying-down; right, by Corn-husker. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 25 


Corn-husker’s wife leaches white corn for soup. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156 PLATE 26 


‘a 


Hulled white corn after three washings. 


(‘epueMmeuoy, fo IstqIv vodUag “YyWUIG JsouIy Aq Sutjuted [IQ) 


‘a0ueC] a[sey BIDUIG oY], 


“4 


| 
; 
4 
/ 


4@ 31V1d 9Slt NILATING ADSONONHLA NVOISAWY AO NVAaeNSs 


“yonols pure UP] oy} SuIpjoy ‘yovoiddy :3U0T ISOM ITEM Aq SJUSUTOAOUW dOUeCT a[se yy 99YOIIY) 


8¢ 3A1V1d 9Sl NILA11ING ASOTONHLA NVOIYAWYV AO NVvVayNEa 


SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 


Bureau of American Ethnology 
Bulletin 156 


An Analysis of The Iroquois Eagle Dance and Songs 


By GERTRUDE PROKOSCH KURATH 


223 


982306—53——_16 


Fae 


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nN A ARIE EA CTT MSA A ON A A RPA Sane Oe PG OI AB 


HTASUM HOSOMONT FGUATARO eA 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
Cimparative.choreography+.s 2uc 22.2. 2.gocmedut oh opinibdl4_omaaQ __ 229 
Pie pea ese 58 1 pg eee ecimen «x Se IR 229 
The: rituals atsSix Nations. Reserve... _. a...  PUSTSBOWAE oF 230 
Onondaga private ritual____.._._-___ i RS Jeo ION. __ 230 
Ceremonial outline! s+. c2nideut. ofea sanilaiaabs tnesski __ 231 
Public ritual at Cayuga Sour Springs Longhouses_____________- 232 
Therdance:,;Three.tribal ‘variants... tess leew Snes ert) ae 333 
Ground plant ..9.. 22. ne eo SOURLL DRA TAAL) 5: 233 
Gestures.and stepgs_scelee_ of cecnt ecu coitelor ai baa sien 236 
LSU GRI eH?) 5 Ai RR Dok a ee ea” 237 
NAGS SS cha ears Pareto NE pee PAO: CORSE eRe 2) TS Vi 238 
Parad pom cea ee ae he eel cae Cae ke ee ETE 246 
Relation to other Iroquois dances_______ 2.2222 Lb eel ee 248 
“PEN O11 ic ee do ee ce eee ae See Gye See perey seeRy am 248 
Tonewmatériaket vlonil!! sdaor)_sonyied ) eoosinanatos Jadinizoial __ 250 
Bcalacyaiellty. cto eo eeie ce heerecenneeete tune a ee. Oo 250 
Semicadences: ou elu ee Sl cee en wee RO OIRO _ 253 
WMPORVaIS. ose ce eee cele re ere EE TAREE 253 
Ran Re cee ee cece in SOLON OD Ta BATE 254 
Instrumental pitch and ttonesdi 3o_2ee2 tedie o)_aulenoialedl __ 255 
PUT G RG SURES 22 2h Sedat ob eden ee eae ween Ne. 255 
Pereussion....--—..2 Gey leit Jo_poiiqenes Dea soterimane’ 255 
IE STNG pas Ne ee GN inc ar are Wierd ap teal 256 
EU y ane inins et hes h eh  eeee eR ie Me 256 
SER UIG ONING Sno eC ae RR Cee Oe Sr oy Ree oe 257 
INUclear COM pPOSitiOn= ts) 5a kt ee ew tlt Eee ee Ges 258 
Thematic. manipulation. ~~... JIEUNGIM, S090 12 Deg atte 259 
Structural patterns... - Lait pigviia apabnerO_o aalq bauo 259 
Contours... 2-2 eon ee RS SOL ARE TH) 16 Haig havo 260 
Comparison. of personal styles_....=-....<<<.c..~ J22U105 10_ AU 264 
Interlonghouse.examples.2 940s JsuiAb J210 ah wigeiaosgioin B99¢ 265 
Chauncey and Richard Johnny John____-__________~_-___._____ 265 
Two Seneca versions; Coldspring and Tonawanda______________ 265 
Four-way. relationship. 2vUsieqimore® oJ) 3. AU. Beno sor 266 
Musical relationship with other Iroquois cycles___._.______________- 266 
The.dance.and :the.sonvs'. 2.22 22222. SY oe Be tA} 267 
@Dke Winged ‘Calumet occ <2cn cence cece cee nce SV MRINGMOO-—S LW) AG 268 
Dance surcivallaucwree aceite ek oe te eee eae eee 268 
Fox. Calumet. Danseiwos=- 3880) pue OF Tt eO) ios tT e 268 
Cherokee-Hagle Dance=_..2-=. 2.21 GI _pU st 269 
PueblosbaglesManee ia see eae ee es a ee ee 270 
The Calumet on the Waterways Trail___._.__..........-_2_---_-- 271 
Between the Mississippi and the Great Lakes (Chippewa, Menom- 
inee, .Winnebago; dilinois) -24. oJ 25 82 21 = sarios o2ugb jel 272 
Tribes of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers (General, Plains- 
Cree, Assiniboin,. Mandan)... 22-<2-2<cnes222ec- setae Jae 274 


226 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLt. 156 


The Winged Calumet—Continued PAGE 
Eagle Waid end Calumet.........0.46- 0 ee 275 
Pawnee: hakos...: 2-5-5 sob chap ome seas ote eee eee 275 
(Omightn wal wl... 3S See te ee eee eee 276 
lows waictowaci......- 21 4R Pe eet ee 277 
euOn HOUR 200 8 ee ee 278 
Osage Médicine du Charbon--___-_-.---.-------.------------ 278 
SENG: BOULPONSE oo gin oo ee ence cen eS see 279 
The Thunderbird.......----- --....sviseetecabe ig ie se 281 
Northwest, Coast... ---_...----_loiit sieving: epobanm_ 282 
Recent adaptations from Pueblos__-----..------------------- 282 
Comanche Eagle Dance--______-_-----------------_-------- 282 
The Grass. Danee, een nn ole Jedict_ seull cae 283 
The Cattaraugus Bird Dance. ....;-.-..------=-~-.. eit Reine 284 
Ganegwa'e and its relatives... --.----=---—.2qa28 Suu seein). 285 
Ce en es eee ee ee eee 285 
PICMIOTIS eee ee i eee 285 
PATONG oe a oe ee ee eee eee eee 285 
Geographical distribution_-____.....------------------------- 287 
Miusigs oo og oe oe toe eos nepeaceaeeese soe =see 287 
Intertribal comparisons (Pawnee, Omaha, Illinois, Fox, Cherokee, 
PHREDIO). 6 oe a hee caw ck csc ces nn nbanns eee 288 
Rhapsodie songs. oo. 2 2525 2022222222222 eeeheoinind 288 
Formal dance songs... 2. -- 22-22 ~~. lee 288 
Trends of deyelopment........ nee 297 
Relationship to other songs of these tribes_-____-_-_-_-------- 298 
BUMIMAPY eo Sek cee ea se cca ae one Ae See 300 
Transmission and reception of ritual currents__--..._-------------- 300 
BBC eNO Ny oo Sn ee ee es i ace eee ee 302 
FIGURES 
3: Ground plan of Seneca, ceremony... ..-----colisivgicact odectead?. . 233 
4. Ground plan of Onondaga private ritual___......----------------- 234 
5. Ground plan of Cayuga Longhouse ritual__..._...-_-.------------- 234 
6° Postures of dancers....-.-_..----------- 2elgis Jecosme: \o _coeeoen 235 
7. Seneca choreography to first dance song, 8. 4__-------------------- 236 
8. Onondaga choreography to first dance song, Oa. 3, 4____----------- 236 
Ho Introductory chantieecagel bos yaiuedlo® -ccoistey 200s! oT. 238 
10. Dance songs S. 5, Oa. 13, C. 3—comparative_-__-_-_--.--.--------- 239 
11. Dance songs 8S. 6, Oa. 14—comparative__-_-.__------------------- 240 
12° S. 7 and 8. 14—comparative.......-.-.----+--.23208 2U- bas aoeeh 6) 240 
430 Oa. 5, C, 2—comparatiye. ..-- 2-2-0 2cec-newcce nc vente tuHald Souat 241 
ey ee Or COS ei 5 Cae eRe 241 
15. S. 9, 11, and Oa. 11; 8. 10 and Oa. 6, 7—comparative___.._._------- 242 
462 S. 12, Oa. 15, C. T—comparative.__...--.--ssasCh siued_osfomdD__ 243 
A¥o Oa. 9, 10.0 ene eee ee neal aimeet obtee= 244 
16c 8. 8, 13, 15, 16... ert eee wren odd -co Jones 245 
19. S. 17, Oa./12, C..5, 8—comparative.. + --_- 22 sb sel bees sent se--- 246 
20. Final dance songs, S. 18, Oa. 16, C. 9—comparative_-___-_-.------- 247 
21. Secundaliscalesa<()) suit eapsewollo¥ thes isveesil att le gadie? .. 250 
22: Tertial seales......-..-.---:----2--(#ebeals. codices cer --— 251 
2s. Quantal denies. oo oo-0p cote ee ee ee 252 


CONTENTS Zant 


PAGE 
cpl Tus 72 Say 2s pn Sa le lal tee fen Ree: gn tape 253 
5 atehqnetssdber trou iris ae oe een ee ONE BREE NG eRe Re ei eee eee 257 
. Symmetrical contours, parallel and complementary______-_-____-__- 261 
PAS YEOMe LE Cal COMLOUTN ES =r 52 8 oe oe ok Ee ee ee 262 
. Sequential contours—opening and closing songs_____-________--__--_- 263 
. intertiibal dance, pattems... io<< 2} d eseerseada-_oct -setet Ib.2 - 286 
BR ee SS ee a a: ae Sea ceneeer Fe Facing_. 288 
. WOBRWENGS 1 2. TURERICNSEL 490 -L Jee) eer tee eho oo oe 290 
. Song excerpts: Pawnee, Omaha invocation; Pueblo, Ilinois____-_____- 291 
. Tonawanda 9, 4; Fox songs 1, 2, 3; scales________________________- 292 
. Pawnee hako, Omaha wa’wa:, Illinois Calumet Dance Songs-_----_-__- 293 
- (Loneawaitde 3.45. 0),9$..- 201+ ot col, pt epeegee pe diiel fl iwi 2 ve 294 


. Cherokee songs 1, 3, 4; scales of tertial Tonawanda and Cherokee 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


The field trips, the choreographic and musicological research pre- 
liminary to this study, as well as the work on the manuscript have 
been facilitated by manifold cooperation. To John Witthoft I owe 
suggestions for first contacts at Six Nations Reserve in 1948 and at 
Qualla Cherokee Reservation in 1949. The success of the repeated 
trips to Six Nations Reserve is due to the cordiality of Deskaheh 
(Alexander General), Esther Jamieson, Sadie Jamieson, and other 
Iroquois friends; also to the hospitality of the Rev. and Mrs. John 
Pryse, of Ohsweken, Ontario. To Dr. William N. Fenton I am in- 
debted for the friendly welcome among the Seneca of Coldspring 
Longhouse and at Tonawanda Reservation and for counsel and 
assistance in all aspects of the work. 

For the consummation of the research during the year of 1949 I am 
indebted to the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological 
Research for their grant-in-aid. 

I wish to express my indebtedness also to Dr.Curt Sachs for invaluable 
musicological advice; to Dr. Leslie A. White for reading of the manu- 
script and constructive comments; to Dr. James Griffin for archeo- 
logical information; to Dr. John O. Brew for permission to reproduce 
Omaha wawa’ songs published by the Peabody Museum; to Dr. George 
Herzog for permission to reproduce his transcription of San Ildefonso 
Eagle Dance songs, and for authorizing the duplication of Tonawanda 
Eagle Dance and Fox Calumet Dance recordings, now in the Archives 
of Folk and Primitive Music of Indiana University ; to Martha Cham- 
pion Randle for permission to use these records and for texts from her 
field notes on the Fox; to John W. Gillespie for copies of Cherokee 
Eagle Dance recordings; and to Carrie Logan Hill, of Six Nations 
Onondaga Longhouse, and Geneva Jones, of Coldspring Seneca Long- 
house, for special information on the ceremony. 

GerRTRUDE P. Kurata. 

Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

228 


AN ANALYSIS OF THE IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 
AND SONGS 


By GrrtrupE Proxoscu Kurata 


COMPARATIVE CHOREOGRAHPY 
THE QUEST 


Fifteen years after William Fenton and Frank Speck, a new guest 
trudged through the snow to an Iroquois Longhouse. The Sour Springs 
Cayuga were celebrating their Midwinter medicine rite renewals, and 
had permitted my participation. On this day—Monday, February 
14, 1948—the Eagle Dance was performed as 14 in a series of 20 events. 
Sober-faced Chief Deskaheh and cheery Willie John accompanied four 
youths in the same songs and evolutions here reproduced. 

This was the beginning of growing friendships and repeated visits, 
though it was not my first acquaintance with an Iroquois. In July 
1946 I had met Chauncey Johnny John, not in his native haunts, but 
at the University of Michigan Summer Institute of Linguistics. As 
“professor” for Dr. Carl Voegelin’s students, he basked in the schol- 
arly environment. On several free evenings he changed to his artistic 
role and his ceremonial costume and, in our living room, showed sam- 
ples of Eagle, War, and other dances and of the songs he had sung into 
“Bill Fenton’s machine.” ! 

Several years passed before Dr. Fenton, the ethnologist who be- 
lieved that the dances and songs required special dedication, found a 
dancer-musician who was determined to explore these expressions of 
Indian culture. In 1948, at Allegany Reservation, it was possible for 
Dr. Fenton and me to collaborate. During the late summer—the 
Green Corn season—the Seneca had no occasion to enact the Eagle 
Dance as a ritual. But one memorable evening, September 4, in a 
one-room cabin, three generations of the Johnny John family demon- 
strated various rituals, including Eagle Dance, while the fourth gen- 
eration joined the second Kurath generation in the perusal of comic 
books. 

Eagle Dance remained elusive. At Sour Springs Midwinter of 1949 
it was replaced by Striking-the-Stick. But on Monday evening, Au- 
gust 21, 1950, a private ritual took place in the home of Joseph Logan, 
the kindly and energetic chief of Onondaga Longhouse at Six Nations 
Reserve. An invitation was extended as a gesture of cordiality. 


1 See Fenton, 1942, p. 5, and 1948, p. 3, for an account of Chauncey Johnny John and of the recording. 
229 


230 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLn. 156 


THD RITUALS AT SIX NATIONS RESERVE 


In 1948 and 1950, as in 1933, the same traditional formula governed 
the procedure and stylized the mimetic imitation of flight. Song and 
dance, inextricably interwoven, usually alternated with the ritual ac- 
tion. They synchronized only in the tobacco invocation and the 
final dance song of offering. 


ONONDAGA PRIVATE RITUAL 


After dark, several Onondaga families and a few friends from other 
longhouses assembled in the main room of Joseph Logan’s home. The 
male actors chose their places on chairs against the wall. Women, 
children, and White guests lounged on the beds and chairs of the ad- 
joining bedroom. The following persons were present (fig. 4): 


Performers: 
Joseph Logan, Sr., Deer Clan, priest. 
. Bill Johnson (Onondaga), gift custodian. 
. Fred Green, Deer Clan, patient. 
Robert Logan, Wolf Clan, age 11, first dancer. 
. Marvin Skye, Deer Clan age 8, second dancer. 
Leroy Smoke, Turtle Clan, age 15, third dancer. 
. Howard Skye, Wolf Clan (C.), grandfather of Marvin.. 
Alex Nanticoke (Chief of Lower Cayuga Longhouse). 
. Joseph Logan, Jr., Deer Clan,? father of Robert, conductor. 
10. Peter Buck, Deer Clan, first singer, with drum. 
11. Roy Fish, Turtle Clan, second singer, with rattle. 
12. A visitor from Tonawanda Reservation. 
13. Jake Skye, Deer Clan,” father of Marvin. 
Spectators: 
14, Gertrude Kurath. 
15. Edward Kurath, asleep on floor. 
16. Joseph Raben. 
17 and 18. Women and children, some of them asleep. 


CONAN WHE 


The coherence of this ceremony was heightened by the participa- 
pation of three generations from two families, the Logans and the 
Skyes. The Logan family dominated the ritual in three significant 
roles of intercession with the supernatural, intermediary between com- 
municants, and personification of the Eagle spirit. No one appeared 
in costume. Fred Green had not provided the usual feathered wands. 
But his mother had cooked a chicken which was placed on a platter 
and set on the floor in front of the singers. She had also prepared a 
corn soup for the final communal feast. The omission of mimetic and 
symbolic paraphernalia did not impair the friendly solemnity of the 
occasion or its rhythmic continuity. 


4 According to Carrie Logan Hill, in both the Logan and Skye families father and son belong to Deer clans 
{rom different tribes. They would not belong to the same clan, because of the matrilineal] system of descent. 


KURATH ] 


Ritual Action 


I. Introduction: 


2. Tobacco offer- 
ing at stove 
II. Body: 
1. Distribution: 
Drum and rat- 
tle to singers 


Wands and rat- 


tles to dancers 


Strike cane, 
speech 
2. Impersonation 
of Eagle: 


Strike cane, 
speech 
Chicken placed 


before singers 


IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 


CEREMONIAL OUTLINE 


Music Dance 
EA DBR EAPINING bate Sh ee oe ce tee Se 
GHAME-A | no in-.|205 2006 /___ _. 
strument 
Chant 1, tremolo: 
fs heart. i ashe | SO i ci. mel er een 
FS dy 2 pg fae ge Ba St) SPR 
Chant 2, tremolo'|...- -. --. 4.02 41 
Eagle cry, shiver | On perch_______ 
rattles 
Song 3: 
A, tremolo____| Quiver, seated __ 
A, tremolo____| Quiver, lunge_ __ 
B, beat ----~- Hop to singers - - 
A, tremolo____} Quiver, lunge___ 
B, beat —.-~-- Hop to perch-_ -_- 
Songs4-15, same |_______________-_ 


After each song, 
strike cane, 
speech; gift 
of biscuits 
or coins 

Cane passed 

around by 


3 Usually Robert sank his teeth into the tender meat. 


pattern as 3 
In lunge, nibble 
chicken 


On return to his perch, he shouted gleefully, ‘‘I got there first!” 


231 


Performers 


Priest. 
Priest. 


Conductor. 


First singer. 
Both singers. 
Conductor. 


Singers. 
Priest. 


Dancers, anti- 
phonally. 


First singer, 
dancers. 
Both singers, 
dancers. 
Both singers, 
dancers. 
Both singers, 
dancers. 
Both singers, 
dancers. 

Gift custodian. 


Conductor. 


Singers, dancers. 
Dancers.? 


Society mem- 
bers. 


Conductor. 


But once Marvin was the successful competitor. 


232 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


CEREMONIAL OUTLINE—continued 


Ritual Action Music Dance Performers 


II. Body—Continued 


3. Offering: 
Song 16.). -«i on (See pp. 247-248)_| Singers and 
dancers. 
Lay down: ~) |eesapeeh seals eee a ee 8 Dancers. 
wands or 
rattles 
Golleet, para- jie -Uss seule: soeec| sel Josenk ae Conductor. 
phernalia 
III. Conclusion: 
ORG TS ial) Aas iaatilees &aalbameReiie ebm -  Giipt nme Priest. 
prayer 
@erbistribution- of |. 2.2.2). 22 e|2032 5. eee Conductor. 
chicken to 
singers and 
dancers 
Seeestiof.corn’ «| |dages of ¥o. Hecke lepine | cise Conductor to 
soup, served all present. 
counter- 
clockwise 


PUBLIC RITUAL AT CAYUGA SOUR SPRINGS LONGHOUSE 


Whereas the private ceremony included the entire procedure, the 
communal observance coincided with only the Body, Part II, of the 
outline above. The two singers were seated on a bench in the center 
of the southwestern or men’s wall; the four dancers faced them on a 
bench on the northeastern or women’s wall. After the introductory 
chant, Bill Johnson handed each of them a feathered wand and rattle. 
The grouping was typical (fig. 5): 

1 to 4. Dancers. 

5. Deskaheh (Alexander General), Turtle moiety, first singer. 
6. Willie John, Wolf moiety, second singer. 

7, Bill Johnson, Wolf moiety, faithkeeper (Cayuga). 

8. Men of Turtle moiety. 

9. Women of Turtle moiety. 

10. Women of Wolf moiety. 

11. Men of Wolf moiety.! 

interlonghouse comparisons.—The Cayuga share customs both with 
the Onondaga and Seneca; hence the grouping of dancers with the 
former and the moiety association with the latter. My notes give no 
information on the names of the four Sour Spring youths, but the 
singers and spectators conformed to a moiety arrangement. The 


4 See Speck, 1950, p. 23, for moiety and sex arrangement. 


KvuratTH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 233 


absence of a fourth dancer and of wands were incidental omissions at 
the Onondaga ritual. As a rule they should be included, as at Sour 
Springs. These wands are all handed to the Six Nations dancers after 
the first chant. 'The Cayuga use only one chant and the Onondaga fol- 
low the second one withaspeech. This differs from the Seneca custom 
of dividing the distribution into two actions, after two songs, by moiety 
(p. 16). Here again Tonawanda, with the two chants, differs from 
Allegany with three (figs. 9 and 31; pp. 238, 290). At Six Nations the 
dancers utter the antiphonal Eagle cry; at Logan’s, first Robert, then 
the other two boys in response. This eliminates the Seneca office of 
whooper. 

The speeches at Six Nations follow the type described by Fenton 
and fulfill the Iroquois fondness for ritualized jokes and clowning. 
However, Seneca speakers interrupt the song, whereas the Onondaga 
and sometimes the Cayuga await the end of the song; Seneca pass the 
cane in rotation, whereas the Onondaga and Cayuga follow no fixed 
order. Twentieth century ideas may vary the code of jests: at Logan’s 
the visitor from Tonawanda told how he had heard about the cere- 
mony over the radio and had hurried there. This absurdity was 
applauded. 

THE DANCE: THREE TRIBAL VARIANTS 


GROUND PLAN 


Seneca—fig. 3.—As the Seneca dancers, be there two or four, are 
paired by moiety, they always face their partner during the lunge, 
approach, and retreat, without reference to the singers. 


= 


Car 


las 
A 
\ 
! 
| 
| 
t 


Qa eee 


Ficure 3.—Ground plan of Seneca ceremony. 


234 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLL. 156 


Siz Nations—figs. 4 and 5.—As the square is strung out into a 


straight line, the four (or three) boys move parallel, always facing the 
singers and the chicken. 


>|]. 


we wee ee 


a ee meee ee ee ae a 


GS 
CBee 
S 


\ J CHICKEN 


15 
18 wii 


Ficure 4.—Ground plan of Onondaga private ritual. 


>fa 
>} 
Is 


70 


Pe ae 
iis 
ny eae ee 
10 FIRE t t ° 
Bieler 
Big vl ee 
tt tt iets 
vdped or 
tit 
o- atigt tithe 


C 
C 
C 


Ficure 5.—Ground plan of Cayuga Longhouse ritual. 


Kuratx] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 235 


\ 
oe AP 5 


Figure 6.—Postures of dancers. J, Seneca dancer in lunging position, arms out to side. 
2, Robert Logan, Onondaga, in lunge, arms out in back. 3, Marvin Skye, Onondaga, in 
lunge, arms forward. 4, Cayuga dancer in lunge, right arm forward. 5, Seneca dancer 
in hop. 6, Hopping position in Onondaga private ritual. 7, Knee twist of Onondaga- 
Cayuga. 8, Cherokee eagle dancer. Note various types of wands. For photographs 
see Seneca, this volume, plate 20; Fenton, 1942, pl. 8; Onondaga-Cayuga, eae 1949, 
plate X, B; Cherokee, Gilbert, 1943, plate 15, 2. 


236 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLn. 156 


Thus the focus is affected by the type of ground plan. This is 
absolute, unchanging, for the tribe, no matter who the dancers. 


GESTURES AND STEPS 


However, the ever-recurrent movement pattern depends not only on 
longhouse custom, but also on the strength, expertness, and mimetic 
ability of the individual performers. The step may appear super- 
ficially the same, but actually it is never repeated twice with mechani- 
cal accuracy. Thus, the choreographies must be considered as para- 
digms. In figures 7 and 8 the first dance songs of the Seneca and 


S.4. A J= 104 


2 CL 
RS eS CS se ee Ee) ee eo oe TE 

Soe ee Ge a Ge Ge) ee ee es ee ee 
Se eS ee ee SS SS SS SS ES SS 


as ha we ya no ya ho we ya howe ya 


e ‘ 
pee ST 


Ficure 8.—Onondaga choreography to first dance song, Oa. 3, 4, 


4 


Onondaga cycles are coordinated with the dance script which relates 
each hop to the corresponding musical beat.’ The graphic portrayal 
is supplemented by conventional verbal description. 


5 For dance script and key, see Kurath, 1950, p. 121, and 1951, figs. 22-24. 


Kuratu] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 237 


In addition to this typical choreography, the final dances show 
definite longhouse variations which call for special outlines. 


KINETIC PATTERN 


Seneca: Song 4 (first dance song) (fig. 7). 


A Seated on perch, quiver wand and rattles. 
A Descend into lunge, right leg extended, facing partner 
(fig. 6, 1). 
Measure 1° Starting in oblique position right face, deep crouching 
B {Count (beat) 1 hop ahead (i. e., obliquely left). Leave ground on 
offbeat, land on accent. 
Count 2 Facing forward, hop ahead with half turn left (fig. 6, 5). 
Measure 2 Two more hops, face left, then forward. 
Measures 3-4 Four more hops, face right, forward, left, forward. 
Measure 5 Three heel-beats in place, facing about toward left. 
Counts 1-3 
A Deep lunge, facing partner, quiver. 
B Measures 1-5 Repeat B, in reverse direction, crossing room. 
Onondaga: Songs 3 and 4 (first dance songs) (fig. 8). 
A Same as Seneca. 
A Same as Seneca, in variant postures (fig. 6, 2, 3). 
Measure 1 Same as Seneca. 
B «Count 1 
Count 2 Continue facing right, smaller hop obliquely left, 
crouch less deep. 
Measures 2—4 Continue with 6 hops—3 large, 3 small. 
Measures 5-6 Continue with 4 small deep hops. 
{eee 7 Three knee twists, right, left, right (fig. 6, 1). 
Counts 1-3 
A Without facing about, lunge and quiver (nibble 
chicken, if any). 
B_ Measures 1-7 Facing right, with reference to singers, hop right 


toward perch, as in first B. 


Cayuga (fig. 8, and Kurath, 1951, fig. 6). 


A A Same as Seneca and Onondaga, except that more 
commonly extend left leg. 

B Facing obliquely left (or right), hop continually, as 
Onondaga, but evenly on each count, as Seneca. 

A Same as Onondaga. 

B Same as Onondaga, but hopping in even accents. 


6 On the whole, the concept of “‘measures”’ does not fit into Iroquois musicology, and here designates 
the rhythmic divisions for analytic convenience. 


[BuLu. 156 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


238 


VARIATIONS 


Skilled 


as shown in 


Longhouse.—At all times the dancers’ rattles conform to the beat 
which the Johnny Johns hold slow enough for a comfortable 


of the singers’ instruments, which differs in each longhouse. 


dancers also observe this drum pattern in their hopping, 
the paradigm. In part their hopping pattern is also determined by 


the tempo, 


J = 100 


Oa:t 


ya- he ye 


o - we h- 


we hi yo 


79 yoo 


ho no 


Figure 9.—Introductory chants. 


Kurata] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 239 


hop on each beat, but which Logan snaps up beyond the possibility 
of a continuous series of rapid deep crouches. Deskaheh’s intermedi- 
ate speed can still be followed by agile dancers in even accents. Less 
facile performers cannot even execute the alternate hopping pattern 
of the Onondaga paradigm, but settle for a hop to a measure or an 
occasional, rather ragged, omission. However, all dancers follow 
the terminal formula of three sharp beats, variously (Seneca) with 
stamping or (Onondaga-Cayuga) with knee twists, usually three or, 
less expertly, two on beats 1 and 3. The manner of advance and re- 
turn is due to the variations in ground plan, as already stated. But 
the half turn (or quarter turn) from side to side may as well be an 
individual idea. Though never observed at Six Nations, it would 
be possible and even appropriate. 

Individual.—Some of the variations of posture have no compulsory 
foundation in longhouse custom. Either leg can be extended, straight 
back (fig. 6, 1 and 4), straight out to the side (fig. 6, 2), or obliquely 
with the knee on the ground (fig. 6, 3). The arms can spread out to 


Sasa) re) [ J = 104 


Figure 10.—Dance songs S. 5, Oa. 13, C. 3—comparative. 
982306—53. 17 


240 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


the side, way back, toward the ground, or with the rattle held forward 
(fig. 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, respectively). The fluttering may be confined to 
the wrists, or involve the shoulders or even the whole torso (Robert 
Logan). 

In the hop, which varies in depth and elasticity, the knees may be 
held straight forward or somewhat separated (fig. 6, 4 and 6). At 
Logan’s home the latter angle was caused by the absence of the wand 
and the consequent grasping and frontal shaking of the rattle with 


S.6 A fora (iD J a ="el0g 
bie 2 SES a es ee 
wi ya - he yo nol= S= he yo no 
(a = fade nie oS 
= as 
Ee SST Tes SL SES Fee STS ES aS ! 
he yo ng he yo heng aed 
Se GT EESESESS Hee WET foe ae 
B J5is2 
: fee — a Sa ass SSS = = 


yaha ho go ya ha ho- gana diya we 


a = 3 J = 104 
EE ELI IT 


al 
or 
eS ee aS SS ES — 


yo- we gang we’eya hahe he yowe ga no weya ha ne he 


Ficure 12.—S. 7 and §. 14—comparative. 


KuratH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 241 


both hands. The arms likewise can fluctuate from an extended to a 
flexed position (fig. 6, 5 and 7). These and other apparently insig- 
nificant variations actually affect the expressiveness and beauty of 
the birdlike motions. A droopy eagle is less exhilarating than a 
sky-dweller with vibrant wings outspread. 


a a | 
——_—_——————_—_————— 


\ 
heyo ng we gana we— heyo ne wiyo ng 


yo hanadi yawe wi yawi yoo wa dt 


Ficure 14.—C. 4, 6. 


242 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuL. 156 


sou a O or t J d-= 108 


wi ya heyo ng wa 


—.. goya we yong g9¥2 GB we yo ng ‘ha wi yo ng 
fee ame 


ya- weyong - weyo ng ha weyo heyo ng ha we- yo’ 


Ficure 15.—S. 9, 11 and Oa. 11; S. 10 and Oa. 6, 7—comparative. 


KuratH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 243 


h di , h 
gng diyo ya’a e 


Ficure 16.—S. 12, Oa. 15, C. 7—comparative. 


[Butu. 156 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


244 


he yo 


(go)ya he ya 


~ 
i) 
o 
g 
= 
Qa 
+ 
io] 
o 
joe 
i) 
cr 


he ya ht ya 


go ya he ya he ya 


Ficure 17.—Oa. 8, 9, 10. 


IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 245 


KURATH] 


heyo ng 


3 


ya ha 


° 
t=) 
° 
> 
o 
Ec 
‘a 
° 
S 
fe] 
= 
= 
~ 


J tle 


A 


6 


S. 


Ae 


heyoo 


wahe ya 


BO. 


heyo’o no 


wahe_ ya’a 


13, 15, 16. 


Ficure 18.—S. 8 


246 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLL. 156 


CHetiry As @) ® J = ta 


<= 
mer X 
Sat SS Ge ee 


ee ne @ yaa ne © Godyaha weyaw@ ng’p 


2 


yo wiyu ng wi yu ng 
(0) 


Ficure 19.—S. 17, Oa. 12, C. 5, 8—comparative. 


FINAL SONGS 


(Fig. 20) 


With due allowance for the individual quotient, all of the dances 
follow the same pattern, but the final deposition of the fans terminates 
each longhouse ritual in a special way. As in general, the motions 
resemble those already described, they require no further analysis. 
They fall into the various outlines here shown. The wand and rattle 
offerings synchronize with musical phrases labeled on figure 20.” 


7 Speck describes the position of paraphernalia on the floor (1949 a, pp. 111-112). 


KuratTH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 947 


5. 68 A d= 16 


go no’o di ya we ya” ha he 


wee ya’a he’ ga’a na we 


ga’ena wiya wi yo ng 


Figure 20.—Final dance songs, S. 18, Oa. 16, C. 9—comparative. 


248 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Butn. 156 


Seneca Onondaga Cayuga 
A A: On perch, lunge A: (1) On perch A: (1) On perch. 
(2), (8) Lunge (2), (8), (4) Lunge. 
B: Advance B: Hop to singers B: Hop to singers. 
A: Lunge face to face A: (1) Lunge A: (1) Dancer 1 deposit 
fan. 
(2) Lunge, quiver (2) Dancer 2 deposit 
fan. 
(3) All deposit fans (3) Dancer 3 deposit 
fan. 
(4) Dancer 4 deposit 
fan. 
B: Retreat B: Hop to perch B: Hop to perch. 


A: Lunge 
Coda: Deposit fans 


RELATION TO OTHER IROQUOIS DANCES 


The Eagle Dance is atypical both as to ground plan and step, amid 
a superabundance of shuffling round dances. The approach and re- 
cession of two lines constitutes Strike-the-Stick (fig. 29); partner swap- 
ping is incorporated in a number of rounds, but these follow a different 
pattern of musical adjustment and progress with noneagle steps and 
considerable improvisation. Thus this fine offering to the sky dancer 
stands alone in Iroquois choreography. 


THE SONGS 


Iroquois music remains as their superlative cultural expression. 
The Eagle Dance songs are no exception. Fortunately they have 
been recorded in the three salient tribal versions which correspond to 
the dance observations, and consequently they can be studied with 
greater assurance than the dances, which must be transcribed from 
memory, from notes made after the ritual, and from descriptions. Dr. 
Fenton made two sets of Seneca disks: in 1936 at Tonawanda together 
with Martha Champion Randle; in 1941 at Allegany with Richard 
Johnny John as chief singer and his grandfather Chauncey Johnny 
John as assistant and as leader in the last 11 songs from the old man’s 
repertoire.® At Six Nations Reserve Dr. Fenton in 1941 recorded 
Chief Joe Logan’s Onondaga cycle as learned from Tom Smoke, Sen- 
eca singer of Onondaga Longhouse. In August 1950 Joseph Raben 
and myself made a tape recording of Deskaheh and Willie John in 
the Cayuga cycle. 

These songs can be translated readily enough into conventional 
notation because of their remarkably distinct melody, pitch, and beat. 
However, the process of adaptation must discard the diatonic, har- 
monic, and metrical concepts of Occidental music. To avoid any 


8 See Kurath, 1951, for description of rounds and cross-overs. 
® See bibliography of recordings (p. 306). 


KuratH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 249 


suggestion of ‘“‘key” they have been transposed down, variously a 
third and a fourth, to a uniform level which avoids key signatures. 
To emphasize the fact that the melodies are not the upper line of a 
succession of invisible chords, the terminology will bypass terms sug- 
gestive of harmony, and will substitute maintone, fifth, five-tone— 
and numerals—for tonic, dominant, pentatonic—and do, re, mi; ter- 
tial for triad, etc. To underscore the flexibility, metric signatures are 
eliminated and bars are tentative except at definite phrase endings. 

The three versions will here be juxtaposed in such a manner as 
to show analogies and facilitate comparisons. The juxtaposition 
will carry through the illustrations and analyses. As the Coldspring 
Seneca version constitutes the starting point of the comparisons, 
its song order remains intact. The Onondaga and Cayuga versions 
are presented in rearranged order, so as to place side by side identical 
or similar songs of the three renderings. . As the Tonawanda Seneca 
version does not feature in the interlonghouse analyses, but forms 
the basis of the intertribal comparisons, it occupies a separate column 
in the following tabulation, without connecting leaders. 

Here and throughout the paper the following abbreviations repre- 
sent the four longhouses: 


S.=Seneca of Coldspring. 
Ton. =Seneca of Tonawanda. 
Oa. = Onondaga. 

C.= Cayuga. 


The leaders have the following significance: 


connects identical songs. 
ee ee oe connects related songs. 


Coldspring Seneca Onondaga Cayuga Tonawanda Seneca 
1 1 2 
1 2 1 
3 
4 3, 4 ) 
5 2 
5 13 3 
Gpptink _ Fin leer ee. Bh. 14 9 
7, 14 
4 
8 8 6 
9, 11 11 5 
10 6 4,7 
12 15 < 
13 
15 
16 8 
9 
10 6 
ee ee 12 5, 8 


250 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


TONE MATERIAL 


The interdependent materials and means of manipulation can 
to an extent be analyzed. The backbone of a song is its tonality, 
which can be reduced to a scale. This receives plastic form by 
means of rhythmic units in play against a percussive background. 
These are welded into patterns of shorter phrases and longer clauses 
or sections, and finally into an ever-recurrent formula with an ever- 
variegated melodic contour and individualized coloring. 


SCALE SYSTEM 


In extracting “weighted scales’’ each note is checked for its fre- 
quency and prominence and then all are lined up in descending 
order (descending because of the melodic trend) and are labeled from 
a whole note to a sixteenth in proportion to their significance. 

Nucleus.—The predominant note or maintone, here labeled on 
the level of lower D, as a whole note, may predominate so as to 
produce a highly focused melody (marked <>). In all but a few 
cases it terminates the tune. Sometimes the second or E of the scale 
ranks next. Sometimes, instead, the third is a runner-up—a neutral 
third or ‘“‘blue note,”’ fluctuating between F and F#. Once in a great 
while the second is the terminal note (Oa. 10), or perhaps the third 
(S. 7 and 14, Oa. 11). (Initial note ~, terminal note ~.) 

Secundal and tertial scales (figs. 21 and 22).—Around these nuclei 
two types of scales take form. Secundal scales, based on the nucleus 


Secunda/ Scales 


S.5 be 0a. 13 = C3 pe 


Ficure 21.—Secundal scales. 


of a second, include the fourth or fifth as upper tone, next in impor- 
tance, and an incidental seventh or fifth of the octave below (labeled 
VII and V). In S. 15 the lower fifth is not incidental, for it ter- 


KuratH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 251 


Tertial Scales 


2 Oa.3s , iN 
4 v + nan A st = no 
L 
Oars | Ges 
y ~ a v Px 
S.6 > Oa. 14 oo 
S.7y a C.4 5 
2222 SS SS eS Se. 
= Eee ee ee ee Ge ees 
aa 
e 
pt] ,-—|------¥ -—-- 
3 | : : | 
° * ou 
3-9 9 2 eae Oa. . 5.405 1 y 
5.16 ’ 5 4 3 | ww 
ww + ao 
+s ———o—— 
} 
6 5) 4 3 1 Vn oy 


Ficure 22.—Tertial scales. 


minates part B, phrase (1). This nucleus serves 12 songs from all 
3 cycles put together. 

Highteen songs, based on the nucleus of 3 and 1—the third and 
maintone—constitute what we call the tertial scales. The fifth is 
sufficiently prominent in all but S. 6, to suggest a ‘‘triad’’ concept, 
a bugle pattern. This is particularly evident in S. 8 which contains 
no subsidiary tones. However, in every case the melodic play is 
tertial, between 3 and 1, or between 5 and 3. This scale type also 
includes temporary closes of B (1) on a note other than the maintone. 
These will be listed below. 

Though these two scales are constructed on a core of two tones, 
respectively adjacent and a third apart, yet they are not two- or 
three-tone scales. Except for S. 8 and C. 6, they all contain four 
or five tones, namely 5421 plus VII or 5431 plus 6 or VII, with V 
as duplication of 5. This must be emphasized, for their growth 
from a central nucleus is reflected in the larger structure and will 
form the core of that analysis. 


252 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


Quartal scales (fig. 23).—Thirteen songs require special considera- 
tion of their tonal idiosyncrasies. Seven emphasize the interval 
of a fourth. This is obvious in S. 13 which contains only 541 VII V 
and thus two inevitable fourths, marked on the weighted scale. 


Quartal Scales 


Ficure 23.—Quartal scales. 


Te main theme of S. 12, Oa. 15, C. 7 descends from 4 to 1, 
with surrounding embroidery of other combinations. These three 
versions of one song add up to the 5421 of the fundamental scale 
plus VII and VI. Similarly S. 18 with a 5421 V sequence exploits 
not only the quartal theme (the first phrase of B), which descends 
431, but also in part A the descent of 542 and in B a direct 1 to V. 
The other two final songs, Oa. 16 and C. 9, explore this interval 
more timidly in their sequence of 54(3)1 V—a different scale from 
S. 18. This concept is latent in several other songs with a secundal 
nucleus, such as S. 10 and 15, Oa. 6, 7, with their frequent progression 
of a fourth. 

Irregular scales (fig. 24).—Two versions of two beginning chants 
fluctuate in their tonality. Oa. and C. 1 with their introductory play 
on a third and their secundal coda, interpolate two quartal descents. 
As in S. 18, this descent is stepwise through an intermediate note. 
Technically this would be termed a ‘‘tetrachord.’”’ In the case of Oa. 
and C.1 an almost diatonic scale results from the combination. S. 1 
and its twin Oa. 2 superimpose three stepwise quartal units on a tertial 
basis, with the intervals of our regular tertial scale. 

Two composite songs are in a different tertial scale without a fourth, 
namely 5321 plus, but in one section they shift their tonal level and 
introduce quartal descents. S. 3 shifts from a clear-cut tertial section 
“A” to a cascading “‘B” in a full scale of 865321 VI, then back again 
to “A.” Oa. 9 terminates both sections in a 65321 scale, but raises 
phrase (1) of both parts one tone, to a quartal 5421. 

All of these scales except one, center around the maintone, and thus 
may be termed “‘plagal.”” Oa. and C. 1 descend to a basic maintone, 
in an “authentic” scale of modal terminology. As a rule they open 


Kuraty] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 253 


Irregular Oa. 1 gal, euigs plex iety 
Scales Cx} a, 
S.! Oa. 2 wn NY 
SS: ; 
A a 
Wit se | ee SE ee ee 
SS ee 
Gl GALL eae Lee ee 
gat sre j ie 
B vv a 


6 Sh4, Se. J. VI.) 


Ficure 24.—Irregular scales. 


on the fifth and end on the maintone. Only four open on the main- 
tone and rise immediately to the fifth—S. 5 and 6, Oa. 13 and 14. 
The range below the maintone may be integrated in the melodic 
texture or it may form a temporary close, a semicadence in the middle 
of part B. The list, already anticipated, is now forthcoming. 


SEMICADENCES 

On 2 of the scale: On VII: On V: 
Secundal— S. 17; Oa. 12; C. 5, 8. 8. 15. 
Tertial—Oa. 9. S. 9, 11,; Oa. 8, 11, 14. Oa. 16, C. 4, 9. 
Quartal— S. 13. Ss. 18. 


The more common half-close on VII is of particular interest because 
of implications to be expounded in the intertribal discussion. 


INTERVALS 


The tonal scheme and melodic play of intervals cannot be dissoci- 
ated, especially in the discussion of quartal scales. They mutually 
function as a cause and effect. A survey of the role played by the 
various progressions will reiterate the typical nuclear radiation with 


254 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (BULL. 156 


direct intervals and the less common stepwise combinations into 
larger intervals. All of the direct progressions have a moderate com- 
pass, and protracted progressions never exceed an octave. 


Monotone.—Commonly prolonged in terminal phrases, often pulsated; recurrent 
in melodic texture in combination with all other intervals, in all positions. 

Semitone.—Rare as clear-cut interval, only in 8. 12, Oa. 15, C. 7, and in Oa. and 
C. 1 and C. 4, as transitional ornament. 

Three-quarter tone.—Sometimes between adjacent notes and a neutral third or 
seventh, recognizable by signs of — or +; in reality an interval fluctuating 
between a semitone and a second. 

Second.—In all songs except two with bugle scale, namely, S. 8 and C. 6; in secun- 
dal scales as nuclear theme; in Oa. and C. 1 and semicadences on VII as ter- 
minal figure, often as transition. 

Third.—In all songs; in secundal songs as development; in tertial songs as 
nucleus; in quartal songs as substratum. 

Fourth.—Less common than second and third, but in some form in all but two 
Seneca, four Onondaga, and two Cayuga songs. 


Descends: S. 5, 8, 12, 15, ORY 1, 9,12, 15; C.x 1, 8-7, 
16, 17; 16; 

Ascends: S&S. 6, 9, 15; Oa. 14; C. 4. 

Rebounds: §. 2, 3, 4, 6, 10, Oa. 6, 7, 10, 12; Sam; fens; me eae 
13, 16; 

Stepwise: S. 1, 3, 9, 11, Oat 2, 6 7, lo: LS oe le 
13, 15, 18; 14; 


Descent in various patterns; ascent usually at phrase beginning; 
rebound in dive from 1 to V; stepwise in quartal descents (tetrachords), 
variously as 421 or 431. Commonly hinged on maintone. 


Fifth.—Rare as direct interval, especially in Cayuga cycle. 


Descends: Oa. 10. 
Ascends: S. 5; Oa. 10, 13, 14; C. 3. 
Stepwise: 8. 7, 8, 18; Oa) i1, 56; 8) 12)) 45,046: & i,a8. 


Ascent always at phrase beginning; stepwise variously with intervals 
521, 541, 531, 5431; always hinged on maintone, except Oa. 10. 
Sixth.—Rare as direct interval; never stepwise except in Oa. 6 and 15, S. 12, C. 7. 
Direct: S. 1; Oa. 2, 6; C. 4, rising, to begin new phrase after a descending 
melody. 
Seventh.—Only once, very protracted, beginning of S. 3 B. 
Octave.—Never in one leap; rarely stepwise, such as Oa. 1, C. 1 and 6 falling; 
8. 10, Oa. 6, 7 rising. 
RANGE 


The compass of a song naturally lies between the top and bottom 
note of its scale and is thus evident in the display. Though it con- 
tains the intervals, it is not dependent on their size. 


Fifth.—S. 5, 7, 17; Oa. 3, 4, 5, 13; C. 2. 
Sixth.—S. 9, 11, 13, 14; Oa. 8, 9, 11, 12, 14. 
Seventh.—S. 12; Oa. 15; ©. 7; 
Octave.—S. 1, 2, 4, 6, 8,10, Oa. 2, 6, 7, 10, 12, 16; C. 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9. 
15, 18; 
Ninth.—S. 16; Oa: 1; oie i 


Tenth.—S. 3. 


Kourati] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 255 


Songs with a fifth range are mostly tertial, those with a sixth in- 
clude two secundal scales, those of a seventh are quartal, those with 
an octave divide evenly, those of a ninth and tenth are irregular. 
The narrowest range goes hand in hand with repetitious themes. 
The sixth is commonly caused by a semicadence on VII, with an 
additional tone in the scale. The seventh is an erratic phenomenon 
in an odd song. The octave results from a rebounding fourth or 
from a semicadence on V, without an additional scale tone. Des- 
kaheh’s rebounds and semicadences are all of this type and account 
for the absence of a sixth range and a proportionately large number 
of octaves. In general, the superabundance of octaves is a con- 
spicuous feature, as is the paucity of larger ranges in all but a few 
erratic melodies. Some of these observations tie in with the problem 
of personal qualities. 


INSTRUMENTAL PITCH AND TONE 


Joseph Logan’s opening and closing songs suggest a sense of har- 
monic instrumental background, for the drum coincides with the 
maintone, on the G of the same level in recording —D in transcrip- 
tion. Similarly, on the reverse side of the Johnny John recording, 
their drum is pitched on the minor third, B flat or, in transcription, 
F. However, on the reverse side of his disk Logan lowers his voice 
a whole tone; and Richard sings the beginning songs a whole tone 
lower than Chauncey’s continuation. Thus, though the tonic or 
third furnish a pleasant background to our harmony-accustomed 
ears, to the Indians the second or fourth are evidently just as satis- 
factory. In fact it is satisfactory, for the tone of the drum is within 
the range of the voice and forms an elegant blend. It is not a boom- 
ing bass drum which brings the blood to a boil and obliterates the 
melody. 

The rattle, while equally unobtrusive, balances the drum with a 
clear swish in the Seneca and Cayuga recordings. Logan had no 
assistant. Though its pitch is rather indeterminate, it appears to 
remain within the vocal range, higher than the drum. Without any 
effect of chords, the contrasting timbre of the two instruments threads 
its monotone through the fluctuating melodic texture. 


RHYTHMIC FIGURES 
PERCUSSION 


The drum and rattle also form a basso ostinato of rhythmic pat- 
tern matching the structural formula. They always vibrate during 
the introductory chants, twice as fast in Logan’s hands as in Johnny 
John’s. During the dance songs, as we have seen, they alternate 

982306—53——18 


256 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Butn. 156 


tremolo and accelerating duple beat in the alternate A and B sec- 
tions. But in each cycle they follow a different device, a Seneca 
play on quarter and eighth notes, an Onondaga stretto of twice- 
doubled speed, a Cayuga acceleration from alternately accented 
quarters to eighths. They always conclude with three sharp beats 
usually coinciding with the last notes, but delayed in C. 2, 5, 8. 
The Seneca rattle alone does not coincide with the drum, but at 
times creates its own pattern. All rattles actually sound a faint 
grace note to each beat, because of the rebound of the ‘‘B-B”’ shot, 
as written out in S. 5. Both instruments conclude the Seneca cycle 
with a tapering tremolo, sedate and final. 


MELODY 


Within their tonal scheme the melodies pulsate in various time 
divisions, keeping exactly abreast of the percussive background. 
The smallest time divisions, or rhythmic units, recur within larger 
combinations or phrases. The most common units, more or less in 
order of frequency are represented on figure 25. They appear most 
conspicuously in the following songs: 


RHYTHMIC UNITS 


(1) 8S. 2, 9, 18, 16, 18; Oa. 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12; C. 2, 4, 5, 8. 
All conclusions except two. 

(2) 5S. 5, 6,-Q)105 Oa. 2, 3, 4, 6,11, 12, 16. 

(3) S. 1, 3, 4, 9, 10, 13, 17; Oa," 2.0, 6,,21;,1%,, Lo, TG. C. 4, 8, 9 
(4) S. 4, 6, 9, 11; Oa. 3, 11. 

(5) S. 5, 6, 13, 17; Oa. 10, 13, 14; C. 2, 6, 7 
Ends: 7, 14. 

(6) S. 2, 8, 13, 7, 14, 15; Oa. 1, 10, 16: CG, 1, 5, 8. 
Ends: 8. 

(7): 3, 6, oF fos Oa. 1,0, 4. 11, Bo Cr1,-6. 
(8) S. 1, 8, 12, 16, 18; Oa. 9, 15; Giz, & 
(9) S. 7, 14, 12, 18, 18; Oa. 15, 16; Cy} Tr 9. 

(10) S. 2, 3, f Oa. 10. 

(11) S. 10, 18; Oa. 6, 16; C. 9. 

(12) Oa. 12; C. 5, 8, 9 

(13) 8. 3; C. 4, 6. 

(14) S. 10, 13; Oa. 6, 11; C. 4. 


These rhythms are further spiced by vocal attacks and ornaments, 
grace notes, mordents, and pulsations, particularly in the first chants 
and in Oa. 9. They are more ornamental and more freely timed 
not only in these chants but in general in the chantlike parts A with 
vibrating drum. 

The simpler units are more common in conservative songs, with 
regulated thematic treatment, and the more elaborate and more 
rapid units characterize rhapsodic songs with free thematic treat- 


KuraTH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 257 


Rhythmic Units 


Ficure 25.—Rhythmic units. 


ment, thus the first chants, and also songs in irregular scales. The 
former are based on the pulsation, its inversion, prolongation, and 
delay (units 1-5). The latter are really variants of three-note 
groupings, even and gracious, or uneven and abrupt (units 9-12). 
In general, the selection of units seems more closely related to struc- 
tural than to scale type. 

Phrases and clauses.—These units combine by repetition (Oa. 12) 
or fusion (Oa. 13) into phrases, and two or three of these phrases 
combine by repetition, development, or contrast, into clauses—the 
sections A and B. The shortest phrase is S. 18, B, measure 1, of 
one rhythmic unit of three beats. The longest phrase contains the 
15 beats or the entire clause of S. 12. The average phrase contains 
about 8 beats, as Oa. 14 B. Short and average phrases appear in 
all kinds of songs, but the longest ones predominate in quartal, 
irregular, rhapsodic songs, as Oa. 1 and 12. 


STRUCTURE 


The handling of these units and phrases and their formation into 
the larger binary frame show consistency and ingenuity, but neither 
hard-set rules nor improvisation. The greatest expertness is manifest 
in the development from a central singJe core, though some interesting 
contrasts result from the juggling of two themes. In most of the 
songs, most clearly in those with one theme, the thematic core is 
identified with the tonal nucleus and dances back and forth on the 
two central notes of the scale. By this method of analysis, it will as 
a rule be found in the middle, not at the beginning, and its development 
can be located before and after the nucleus, as a prelude and coda. 
Several examples from three scales will be broken up to show their 
nuclear and concise composition. 


258 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


NUCLEAR COMPOSITION 


Secundal Theme—S. 5, Oa. 13, C. 3 (fig. 8): 
Nucleus: Phrase (2), in seconds. 
Development: B, phrase (1), in thirds. 
A, phrase (1), in fifths. 
Coda: Oa. 13, C. 3, phrases (3), monotone after first note; S. 5 no coda, only 
terminal three-beat formula. 


Labels: S. Oa. and C. 

A B A B 
Consecutive: a b c b a be abe 
Nuclear: ae a’ a nana © alitaiall * 


(1) (2) (1) (2) (1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (8) 
Secundal Theme—S. 17, Oa. 12, C. 5 (fig. 19): 
Nucleus: A (1). 
Development: 8. B (2); Oa.-C. A (2). 
Coda: 8. A (2), B (8) (extension of nucleus). 
Secondary Theme: Oa.-C. A (3), B (2). 
Prelude: Oa.-C. A (1). 


s. Oa.-C. 
A B A B 
Consecutive: a b G.2a'b a be de 
Nuclear: a aS a a’ ax y a b ab 


(1) (2) (1) (2) (8) (1) (2) (8) (1) (2) 
Tertial Theme—S. 9, 11, Oa. 11 (fig. 15): 
Nucleus: B (1). 
Development: 8. A (2), B (2); Oa.-C. A (2), B (2). 
Prelude: A (1). 
8. Oa. 
A B A B 
Consecutive: a b nN Ac Vb Db’! 4e 
Nuclear: yi Pat Sao at at y a’ a 0a? 
(1) (2) (1) (2) (1) (2) (1) (2) 
Quartal Theme—S. 18, Oa. 16, C. 9 (fig. 20): 
Nucleus: A (1), ii; Oa.-C. also A (2) ii. 
Secondary Themes: §. A (1) i and A (2); Oa.-C. A (1) and (2) i, and (4); other 
theme Oa.-C. A (3), B. 
Development: By thematic alternation, also Oa.-C. A (8). 
Coda: Prolongation of theme b at end of all sections. 


s. 
A B A’ coda 
Consecutive: a b as< C ag asb as< cm 
Nuclear: b a! bs< a bs bs a’ Ds< ax 
(1) (2) (1) (2) Cy AA, 
Oa.-C. 
A B 


Consecutive: a b as b C< ag cx 
Nuclear: ba, .,.bg@ Cx bg cm 
(1) (2) (3) (4) 


Kurata] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 259 


Labels for both the consecutive and nuclear methods: 
a, Theme; a’, variation; a, nucleus. 
as and ag, Theme transposed down a fifth or an octave. 
a< and a>, Prolongation and condensation. 
b, Secondary theme. 
y, Introduction, in the nature of a call, related to theme. 
A (1) i, Section, phrase, subdivision of phrase. 


Labels are in themselves irrelevant and are juxtaposed in two ways 
so as to emphasize the idea of conceiving a composition from the inside 
outward to the periphery. ‘This is a striking characteristic of most 
of the Eagle Dance songs, but not of all songs of the Iroquois or other 
tribes. The first and last songs of the Eagle Dance superimpose 
consecutive on nuclear structure. That is, in S. 1 and Oa. 2, and 
in Oa. 16 and C. 9, the main theme is stated in the second phrase, but 
development and transposition to a lower level follows this statement. 

A few comments should point interesting features of the three 
typical examples: 

In those with secundal themes, the theme receives more expansion in part A. 

In all cases with a “‘y’”, this rhapsodic prelude comes at the beginning. 

S. 5 has no coda. 

8. 17 is a different song from Oa.12 and C. 5, but develops from the same nucleus, 
S. 17 by similar devices as the other secundal songs, except for the position of the 
nucleus; Oa. 12 and C. 5 by adding a complementary theme to each section. 

In the songs with tertial themes, expansion of intervals is similar in A and B, 
but “y” starts off on the highest note. S. 9, 11 contracts the theme in B (2)—or 
perhaps conversely the other recurrences can be said to add a rhythmic unit. 

Other songs may use these same devices or other means, some of them so subtle 
as to be subject to several interpretations. 


THEMATIC MANIPULATION 


The foregoing songs show several devices for developing a theme: 
These and other devices will be listed with a few examples. They 
have many other recurrences. 

(1) Repetition with slightly varying contour: Oa. 14B. 

(2) Expansion of intervals: S. 5, 9, 17; Oa. 10, 13, C. 3. 

(3) Dwindling of intervals: S. 5; Oa. 13; C. 3, 6. 

(4) Prolongation, usually on monotone: S. 17B; Oa. 5A; C. 4A. 
(5) Contraction: 8. 9A. 

(6) Transposition to lower level: S. 1, 8; Oa. 2; end songs. 

(7) Shifting temporal position: S. 7, 14; Oa. 3B, 4B. 

(8) Inversion: §. 16 (contour); S. 9; Oa. 11 (rhythm). 

(9) Semicadence: see page 253. 


STRUCTURAL PATTERNS 


The binary formula is only the outer shell. The manipulation of 
the rhythmic units in various combinations and intervals forms a dif- 


260 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


ferent mosaic for each song. The patterns can be grouped as follows: 


(1) Parallel Composition.—In parallel composition the same pattern is repeated 
in different sections. 
Part A resembles part B: 


5.2, 4,5, 6, 3,9, 17: On. 2; 9,12, 13: Cr3 ee 
Phrase (1) resembles (2) and (3) (if any): 
S. 6B; Oa. 6A, 8A, 10B, 14B; C. 2A, 3A, B, 6A. 


(2) Complementary Composition.—In complementary composition one part 
mirrors another. 
Contour reversed: 
A and B—S. 10; Oa. 6, 7, 10; C. 4. 
(1), (2)—S. 9, 11B, 10B, 15B,16B; Oa. 6B, 11B, 12B, 15B; C. 
4B, 5, 8B. 
Rhythm reversed: 
S. 4, 9, 11A. 
(3) Asymmetrical Composition.—Asymmetrical composition has an irregular 
or rhapsodic pattern. 
One theme: 
Sar if oil: “Ga ke 45.115 oa 
Two themes: 
S. 3, 12, 18B; Oa. 10, 16A; C. 9. 

Some songs belong to two groups, as S. 9 (all three groups) and Oa. 15 
(groups 2 and 3). Means of developing asymmetrical compositions 
are named under Thematic Manipulation. They may appear in any 
of the song groups. All of the groups include monothematic and bithe- 
matic songs. All but 20 have one theme. Those with two or more 
themes are: S. 3,10, 12,13,18; Oa. 5,6,7,9,10,12,14,16; C. 2, 
4,5, 7, 8,9. Thus most of the Cayuga songs, but few Seneca songs, 
have two or more themes. 

Tonality also cross-cuts compositional type; but the three scales 
tend to correspond to the three groupings, namely, secundal scales to 
parallel, tertial scales to complementary, and quartal and irregular 
scales to asymmetrical patterns. There are tertial asymmetrical 
songs (at the same time complementary) and irregular songs (Oa. 9) 
with parallel form; but on the whole conservative scales and patterns 
go hand in hand. 


CONTOURS 
(Figs. 26, 27, 28) 


A melodic line, variable and expressive, emerges from the structural 
process. Its contours, transferred to graph paper, yield geometric 
patterns. On the graphs a horizontal space represents a sixteenth note 
and a vertical space a semitone. A notch on the left margin indicates 
the position of the maintone. The three groups compare samples of 
parallel structure, asymmetrical designs, and stepwise beginning and 


KuratH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 261 


A 8a 
2. {? ry 
A 8B 
» 
3 -. ‘ies a 
a 0 
4. A 8B 


Ficure 26.—Symmetrical contours, parallel and complementary. 1. Oa. 6, S. 10. 
2 Onto a Sa. Sa Da Se A, Ob oS. de G fe 


ending songs. They show a number of structural elements, for 
instance: 


Parallel endings in the first group, with variable developments: 
In fig. 24, 1, opposite, mirrored beginnings of A and B. 
In 2 and 8 higher level and expansion of opening. 
In 4 parallel pattern of Oa. 15 as a result of added phrase in A, with modified 
mirroring. 
In all, centering on maintone, drawn out in end. 


262 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


Asymmetrical designs of the second group, except for similar endings of A and B in 
fig. 27, 7: 
Jagged “‘hopping”’ design in 6. 
Complementary pattern in Seneca version of fig. 27, 6B. 
Irregular placement of theme (shown by line) in fig. 27, 7. 
Melodic preponderance above maintone, especially in fig. 27, 7. 
In both groups different song beginnings are evident—opening on the fifth in 
1, 2, 4, 6, 7, opening on the maintone in 3 and 4, with immediate rise to fifth. 
Stepwise descents in the third group, in contrast with wavering progression of other 
two groups. This betrays the device of transposition. 
Steep and bold outlines, ending nonetheless on drawn-out maintone, especially 
in figure 28, 11. 
In 9, octave descent to maintone. 
In 8, 10, and 11, temporary ending on fifth below, with consequent recapitula- 
tion of theme on higher level, notably 8 and 10. 
In 10 and 11 heavy weighting below maintone. 


Ficure 27.—Asymmetrical contours. 5. Oa. 14,8.6. 6. Oa. 11,8.9, 11. 7. S. 7, 14. 

Maondies. soos ese Seneca and Cayuga. (Onondaga used as norm 

because of Seneca and Cayuga similarities.) Contours represent melodic simplification 

for the salient pattern, not detailed graphs by “‘cents”; for no tonometric apparatus has 

been available. For ‘‘cents” see Apel, 1950, p. 126 and pp. 362-3; Thuren, 1923, pp. 17 
ff. and pp. 62 ff. 


Kurata] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 263 


a 


PITTED IN LTINY: vids 


Ficure 28.—Sequential contours—opening and closing songs. 
8. Oa. 2, S. 1. 9. Oa. 1,,.C. 1 with Coda (C). 10. S.3. 11. Oa. 16, C. 9; S. 18 with 
Coda (C). 


Scales and rhythmic units.—These cannot be shown on such a simplified graph, 
except by inference. So we refer to our previous comparisons. In the first 
group all songs but the last are in secundal scales, the last one (fig. 26, 4) 
being quartal. In the second group all examples are in tertial scales. Inthe 
third group all examples are in quartal or irregular scales. Similarly, simpler 
rhythmic units predominate in the first two groups, with triplets in examples 
4and 7. Syncopated and rapid units are confined to the third group. 

These observations reinforce our comments on the conformity of 
conservative or adventurous devices within a song, and also on the 
contrast between the body of the songs and the chants and conclusion. 

Another kind of distinction is also evident, namely, indwidual vari- 
ations as between versions: lower dips by the Seneca and Cayuga 
singers, expansion by Logan in figure 26, 4, by Deskaheh in figure 28, 
11. This subject will form the concluding section of our analysis. 


264 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bunn 156 


COMPARISON OF PERSONAL STYLES 


Whoever the singer, in whatever longhouse, Eagle Dance songs 
retain their peculiar formula. Less obviously but nonetheless dis- 
tinctly, Johnny John, Shanks, Logan, and Deskaheh imprint each 
song with their special artistic touch and personality, consistent and 
pronounced when the versions are placed side by side. The same 
songs which were graphed for contour outlines (figs. 26-28) also are 
analysed for idiosyncrasies and bear the following labels: 


———._ Variable treatment, by level or rhythm. 
—~—~ _ Asecond variable phrase, recurring in other versions. 
[ ]) An insertion or expansion in one of the versions. 


From the study of these varying treatments of the weighted scales, 
contours and metronome readings, the following distinctive character- 
istics emerge: 


Melody: 
(1) Seneca: More focused melodies, range of fifth, lower weighting, gliding 
contours. 
(2) Onondaga: Range of fifth preferred, “hoppy” contours; tendency toward 
sharpened pitch by: 
a. Sharpened or raised third. 
b. Hastened rise and delayed descents. 
c. Higher weighting. 
(3) Cayuga frequent range of an octave, low weighting. 
Rhythm: . 
(1) Seneca: More syncopations and triplets. 
(2) Onondaga faster tempo, especially in opening chant. Generally similar 
melodic units, but different drum patterns in each. 
Structure: 
(1) Seneca: In opening chants modified ternary form, with recapitulation of 
part A; in dance songs much juggling with one theme. 
(2) Onondaga: In dance songs frequent combination of two themes, tend- 
ency toward thematic expansion and embellishment. 
(3) Cayuga: In chant free rhythmic play, in dance songs strict adherence 
to tempo, to symmetrical and parallel forms. 
Rendering: 
(1) Seneca: Gliding initial attack, free timing, quavering, husky vocal 
quality, frequent prolongation and anticipation. 
(2) Onondaga: Grace note in initial attack, precision, staccato stops and 
pauses, resonant quality. 
(3) Cayuga: Upbeat in initial attack, deliberate, smooth and dignified 
timing and vocal quality. 
Texts: 
All: Liquid burden syllables, as ‘““yohawiyonahe,” prolonged vowels. 
Seneca and Cayuga: Initial attack with soft “‘(wi)yo’’ (good?). 
Onondaga: Initial attack with more vigorous “goya.”’ 
Seneca and Onondaga: In §S. 7, 14, 10, Oa. 6, all end songs sibillants. §. 12, 
Oa. 15, C. 7 different syllables viz; 
8. 12, “hongdiyo ya’ahe’e.”’ 
Oa. 15, “hanigodg yohe-i.” 
C. 7, “haniggdg yohawi.” 


Kurata] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 265 


INTERLONGHOUSE EXAMPLES 


Figures 9 and 28, 8: Logan fast tempo of melody and drum; 
Johnny John expansion (exception) and terminal speeding and beat. 

Figures 10, 19, and 20, 2, 3: Johnny John and Deskaheh lower 
contour line, notably by latter’s dips to fifth below. For resultant 
lower scale weighting, see figure 19, as indicated by greater note values 
below the main tone of Seneca and Cayuga versions. Shorter Seneca 
terminal phrase, marked by vertical line. 

Figures 16 and 26, 4: Logan prolonged part A, with balancing 
dip and surge below and above main tone and parallel endings. 

Figures 20 and 28, 11: Seneca form different, weighted lower. 
Cayuga extension of part A (exception). 

All musical examples show difference in attack on first note, also 
occasional rhythmic variations as marked. 


CHAUNCEY AND RICHARD JOHNNY JOHN 


Despite the amazing similarity of the two voices, the different 
timbre betrays different authorship of the two sides of the recording. 
Chauncey’s voice is huskier and more evanescent in symptom of old 
age. His greater freedom shows in the two renderings of one song— 
S. 7 by Richard, 8. 14 by Chauncey (figs. 13 and 27), 7. The melodic 
differences are subtle, namely, Chauncey’s early excursion to a higher 
note (written as middle B), and more frequent use of short synco- 
pations and triplets. More evident are differences in drumbeat and 
texts. In the course of the whole record it is curious that Chauncey 
starts a note higher and slightly speeds up, so as to conclude at about 
the same tempo as Logan. 


TWO SENECA VERSIONS, COLDSPRING AND TONAWANDA 


The recording by Robert Shanks of Tonawanda Longhouse became 
available too late for inclusion in the previous comparative tabulations, 
but in time for supplementary remarks. The 10 songs are reproduced 
in juxtaposition with songs from other tribes and will be found in 
figures 31, 33, 35. Every one resembles a Coldspring relative, except 
for Ton. 6, which is related to Oa. 10; and Ton. 2, related to Oa. and 
Cbs 


Ton. 1: like S. 1 with the addition of the rapid ornamental sixteenth notes. 

Ton. 2: Similar to Oa. 1 and C. 1, with extended development and greater quartal 
emphasis: opening phrase descends fourth instead of third; all three recur- 
rences of A descend by fourths, each more rapidly, A’ with extension, A’’ 
with condensation. A’ and A” sink to the lower octave (maintone) by play 
on second and maintone. 


10 This may be a longhouse characteristic, for Peter Buck also sang at 4 good clip. 


266 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


Ton. 4, 7: Like 8S. 10 and Oa. 6, 7, especially like the latter, with additional 
ornamental steplike descent in A, measure 2. Note the rising sequence 
which, by subsequent descent, creates a bow-shaped contour. §S. 10 has no 
rising sequence in B, 8. 6 has sequence of two units, Ton. 4 of three units. 

Ton. 5: Like S. 9, except for grace note in A. 

Ton. 9: Like 8. 6 more than Oa. 14, except triplet in A and semicadence in B. 
Other songs, though related, show different treatment, thus Ton. 3 and §. 4, 
Ton. 8 and §. 16, Ton. 6 and Oa. 10. Here Oa. 10 has superimposed two 
scales by ending A and B on the second; also it has twice attenuated the 
syncopated unit. 

Ton. 10: This final song is most like Oa. 16 in form and treatment of A, but with 
shortened A and lengthened B, and many melodic variations. 

In general, Shanks ornaments and extends even more than Logan, 
but the fantasy is concentrated in the melody; his rattle usually per- 
sists in the same duple beat as Deskaheh’s drum. He greatly prefers 
tertial songs, all but Ton. 4, which tends toward quartal, and the 
quartal beginning and final songs. 


FOUR-WAY RELATIONSHIP 


As might be expected, the resemblance between the two Grand 
River versions is closer than between these and the Seneca songs, 
and the difference between father and grandson is subtle indeed. 
Shanks is most individualistic, and stands as middleman between 
the other repertoires. Deskaheh stands midway in the drum pattern 
and in structural manipulation, but shares only those Seneca songs 
which also recur in the Onondaga repertoire. The fundamental con- 
formity can be explained by the avowed Seneca origin by way of 
Tom Smoke. The divergencies, while associated with the three long- 
houses, certainly originate in creative personality, in preferences 
for symmetrical or irregular forms, for vigorous rhythms, embellish- 
ments, insertions, or else an even, balanced flow of melody. How 
these qualities reflect the personality of these Iroquois artists, their 
mien and gait, stands out as symptom of the Iroquoian freedom within 
tradition. 


MUSICAL RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER IROQUOIS CYCLES 


Is the Eagle Dance isolated musically as well as choreographically? 

Scale and Melodic Trend.—All types of the Eagle Dance scales recur 
in the great body of songs, though in greatly varying proportions. 
Rare secundal scales appear in older ceremonial cycles, especially the 
Medicine Society ritual, also parts of the Drum Dance, and others. 
Tertial scales occur in these and also in the Feather Dance, Corn 
Dance, and others. Quartal scales are subordinate in the Bear Dance 
and predominant in war and modern songs, Striking-a-stick, wasase, 
modern Women’s Dance, and social dances—boldly stated in the last. 
These last also descend steeply to the maintone, often with a large 


KuratH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 267 


range to 13 notes, whereas many ceremonial songs hover around the 
maintone within a fifth to an octave, just like the Eagle Dance. The 
octave by a dip to the lower fifth is a frequent phenomenon. Semi- 
cadence is rare. 

Rhythms.—Rhythmic units show a similar distribution. The sim- 
pler Eagle Dance units 1 to 5 also predominate in the ceremonial 
songs, notably those addressed to animals (Bear, Buffalo), and also 
in the Robin social dance. Syncopations and triplets ornament War 
Dance types, Fish Dance, and modern compositions. On the other 
hand, the connection between structure, percussion, and dance pattern 
is unusual. Cross-over dances similarly alternate beat and tremolo, 
as Striking-a-stick, or as Fish Dance with a halftime beat instead of 
a tremolo. But in all dances other than the Eagle Dance the cross- 
over synchronizes with the chantlike A. In none of them does the 
percussion beat follow an elaborate pattern such as we have here 
analyzed. 

Structure.—The AABAB form goes hand-in-hand with this percus- 
sion oddity and thus with cross-over dances. In the newer ceremo- 
nies it appears alongside ternary forms, as in S. 1 and 3; in stomp 
dances it is commonly replaced by ternary. Both nuclear and con- 
secutive construction recur, the former in the Medicine Dance, the 
latter in the War Dance, and similar devices juggle the themes, in 
all kinds of phrases, which are much shorter in Bear than in Women’s 
Shuffle Dance. 

Thus musically Eagle Dance fits into the picture, despite individ- 
ualities of structure and percussion. 


THE DANCE AND THE SONGS 


Form.—The ceremonial outline and choreographies have already 
shown the connection between action and song, invocation to chants, 
and dance progression to rhythmic accompaniment. They have 
shown the contrasting motion pattern conforming to the song parts 
which are differentiated by rendering and percussion, though not by 
melodic character. Legato movement follows legato singing, and 
hopping follows sharp sound patterns, in every single song. The 
reciprocal conformity has produced divergent concluding forms: two 
more sections to complete the Seneca dance and an especially pro- 
longed Cayuga part A to allow for the consecutive deposit of the 
wands by the four dancers, one on each phrase. 

Expression and dynamics.—The contrast of legato and staccato 
enhances the expressive content of these passages, hovering or hop- 
ping. This correlation does not, however, extend to melodic inter- 
pretation in movement. The songs may hover in suspense, swoop 


268 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


downward, soar upward, waver up and down, or glide ona level. The 
dancers pay no attention to these melodic flights. Even the cor- 
respondence of the jagged up-and-down jump is very general. 

In both dance and song the individual’s creative ability contributes 
to the expressiveness; his personality colors the performance. But 
in the dance the performer cannot transcend the frame as easily as 
the singer who is his guide; he cannot interpolate phrases or vary the 
beat. Within the two contrasting longhouse ground plans, the 
dancer is more subject to tradition than the singer. 


THE WINGED CALUMET 
DANCE SURVIVALS 


The Iroquois Eagle Dance, a variant of the Calumet ritual, appears 
doubly significant when we can count on our fingers the tribes that 
have retained some form of the formerly widely distributed Calumet 
Dance. Three contemporary types in three key locations have come 
within my experience, either through observation or through direct 
description by informants. The three locations are the Midwest, 
Southeast, and Southwest. The three types are: 

The Calumet Dance with feathered stem, witnessed among the Fox of Tama, 

Iowa. 
The Hagle Dance with feathered stem, described by Cherokee singers of Qualla 
Reservation, N. C. 


The mimetic Eagle Dance without wand, witnessed and described in various 
locations; at home in the Tewa Pueblos, N. Mex. 


FOX CALUMET DANCE 
(See fig. 33 for music) 


The Fox Indians (Meskwaki, Outagami, Rénards) share the Pipe 
Dance with the Sauk and Winnebago. It is a competition between 
successive pairs of men or youths who display their best steps of the 
War Dance type. To a tremolo of the great booming drum, they 
start with an ambling, clockwise circuit, yelling and vibrating a small 
tufted rattle in the extended right hand. In the left they hold before 
them a long-stemmed feathered calumet. They circuit between songs 
and for their exit. Each song has the same binary form as the 
Iroquois, a similar alternation of tremolo and beat, and a similar 
centered tonality. My field notes on several renderings follow. 

Two contestants whoop and shake their rattles during an ambling 
circuit, then place themselves vis-a-vis in the center of the floor. 

(1). A. Kneel on one knee, shaking rattle in front. 

B. Hop with back pull, turning from side to side. 
(2). A. In wide straddle, bend forward and sway with head close to ground. 


B. Hopping on left foot, touch right toe, heel, toe, heel. Reverse. 
(Similar to the jig step.) 


KouratH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 269 


(3), A. Forward sway, or change places with partner. 

B. Jump-hop, raising knees alternately. (Similar to Wasase.) 

(4). A. Walk in small clockwise circuit. 

B. War dance step—ball-heel right, raise left knee; reverse, turning from 
side to side. Pipe held high overhead. 

For each combination A and B are repeated. Each dancer and 
each song produce a different step, sometimes each half of a song. 
This variability and the nature of the movements distinguish the Fox 
Pipe Dance from the Iroquois Eagle Dance, despite the analogy of 
paraphernalia and of alternate legato and staccato. Also, the songs 
receive different rendering in the Midwest, by four or more men 
seated around a frame-supported drum to one side of the dance ground. 
The function has lost ritual connotations and has integrated the boast- 
contest idea into the dance itself. This is not because of any ritual 
breakdown among the Fox. They have retained a good many rites, 
especially the feasts of gentes. For instance, the Eagle gens has a 
ceremony with two calumets but without eagle mime and evidently 
not connected with the Iroquois type. (Jones, 1939, pp. 97-98.) 


CHEROKEE EAGLE DANCE 


The Christianized Eastern Cherokee still attach magic power to the 
Eagle Dance, in celebration of victory. Carl Standing Deer and 
Dave Lawsey of Qualla Reservation were not able to perform it for 
me, but they described it as a performance by as many as eight men 
who advance in a line, sway in place, and cross over in two groups 
They use a deep crouch with one leg extended out in front (fig. 6, 7), 
thus different from the northern Iroquoian. According to Fenton 
(field notes) and Speck (1951, p. 40, pl. 15), each dancer carries a 
small rattle in the left hand and in the right hand a wand with eagle 
or hawk feathers attached at right angles, thus also different from 
the Iroquois. 

The Eagle Dance (tsugi’dali) is probably the most important and revered of 
the Cherokee dances. The eagles were said to have gathered together and teased 
each other just as men do now in the Eagle Dance. The Eagle Dance used to be 
held in the fall or winter when the eagles were killed but it is now held at any 
time. In additon to its celebration of the killing of an eagle, the Eagle Dance 
has several subordinate elements such as the Scalp Dance which celebrates vic- 
tory in war, and the Peace Pipe Dance which celebrates the conclusion of peace. 
The chief function of the Eagle Dance at the present time is the celebration of 
victory in the Ball game [seven days after the game]. [Gilbert, 1943, p. 263.] 


Gilbert includes no dance description; Bernard Mason offers a 
fanciful version (1944, pp. 175-179). Thus the only reliable details 
are recorded by Speck (1951, pp. 39-42). They are condensed as 
follows: 

An even number of male and female dancers in opposite lines, 
running east and west, face each other in pairs.... Steps range 


270 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (BULL. 156 


from a dignified walk to the usual shuffling trot, and postures from 
stooping to crouching with one knee lowered. 
First period.—Counterclockwise circling of the fire with stomp step. 
Second period.—In early night, concentric circling in opposite directions by male 
and female groups, with low crouch. 
Third period.—Peace Pipe Dance. 
a. Toward morning, two opposing lines of men and women, marking time, 
then crossing over and returning to place. (cf. Striking-a-stick-Dance). 
Fan swaying over partner’s head. 
b. Lines, separating, in opposite circling, women right, men left. (cf. Pueblo 
Eagle, Cherokee Quail). 
c. Part (a) back to back. 
d. Same as First period. 

Except during the crossover, the wands and rattles were shaken up 
and down in unison or held above the head. The leading woman 
used to wear turtle Jeg rattles, as in the Friendship Dance. In 1929 
the women carried empty baskets for feeding the eagle and further 
placating him. 

In an ensuing Victory or Scalp Dance successive soloists led a cir- 
cling line of men and exhibited mimetic combat steps and boasting 
enactment of feats (Speck, 1951, p. 64; Fenton, field notes). 

Fenton’s 1947 field notes, from Will West Long, corroborate Speck’s 
statements in essentials; his quoted song texts resemble those here 
transcribed in figure 36. All materials add up to fundamental dis- 
tinctions from the Eagle Dance, not only in ground plans, inclusion 
of women and stomp step, but even in the type of crouch and the 
form and handling of the wand. 

All three sources add up to inter-Iroquoian formal consanguinity 
but not identity, and to accentuated contrasts between Southeast and 
Midwest both choreographically and numerically (Fox two men, Iro- 
quois four, Cherokee eight). On the other hand, the challenge motif, 
which has been metamorphosed among the Iroquois, unites the Fox 
Pipe and Cherokee Scalp Dance section. 


PUEBLO EAGLE DANCE 


The famous Tewa eagle dancers intensify the birdlike illusion of dips 
and sways and ignore calumet and boast. Two men, symbolizing 
male and female principals, carry a winglike strip of feathers on their 
outstretched arms and a half-mask of cap and beak. (See Roediger, 
1941, p. 195; Evans, 1931, p. 50.) From the kiva they follow a line 
of sprinkled corn to the dancing place (Spinden, 1915, p. 111; see also 
photo). 

(1) They circuit the dancing place against the sun to a drum trem- 
olo and almost monotone chant by a chorus of singers in Sioux bonnets. 
(2) They step gingerly on half toe, circling in opposite directions or 


Kurata] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 271 


following one another in a circle, to a syncopated song with even quar- 
ter note drumbeats. (8) They sway and twist from side to side, 
stepping or squatting low to a descending tune with triple drumbeat. 
(4) They hop from side to side on one foot, toeing with the other, and 
rotate their wings, to an even beat. (5) They exit as they entered. 

This choreographic and musical essence perseveres through local 
variations, in San Ildefonso (Evans, 1931, pp. 50-60), Tesuque (But- 
tree-Seton, 1930, pp. 60-63), and even as borrowing in other tribes 
(ibid., p. 62). 

Writers have commonly connected the Pueblo Eagle Dance with 
the Thunderbird and rain (Evans, 1931, p. 49; Hewett, 1930, p. 128). 
But Parsons (1939, vol. 1, p. 133) reports it as a communal curing 
ceremony by an Eagle society. ‘“I'wo doctors dance like eagles and 
dipping their plumes in ashes, go about the chamber whipping disease 
away” (Parsons, 1939, vol. 1, p. 539). In San Juan “on the third 
night of the retreat of the Eagle society, medicine is given to all who 
come near the altar’ (ibid., vol. 2, p. 827). In Tiguan Jemez as an 
autumn dance it is performed in the open (Parsons, 1925, p. 116). 
Generally, in Keresan Acoma, Cochiti, and Tewa pueblos, it is per- 
formed in the plaza, at Christmas or on King’s Day, January 6, along 
with Buffalo, Deer, Comanche, and Matachina Dances (Parsons, 1939, 
vol. 1, pp. 494, 533, 542). Never does it include a calumet ceremony, 
which in fact leads a feeble existence among the Pueblos (Parsons, 
1925, p. 122), notwithstanding the San Juan Pipe Dance (Buttree- 
Seton, 1930, pp. 44-45). 

This Pipe Dance is introduced, and the same may be true of the 
Eagle Dance. It appears along with adopted dances, and has been 
popularized to performances in a Santa Fe hotel. Parsons (1939, vol. 
2, p. 1018) snatches at a possibility of Aztec connections; but she does 
not follow up in her listing of Pawnee connections (ibid., vol. 2, pp. 
1024-25) nor verify her impressions of recent introduction (ibid., vol. 
2, p. 1018, ftn.). 


THE CALUMET ON THE WATERWAYS TRAIL 


These three survivals encompass a large territory, but the calumet 
ritual spread even further. As the focal object in war, peace negotia- 
tions, and barter, it extended its domains from Florida to Canada and 
to the Rocky Mountains. (See West’s list of tribes, 1934, p. 263.) 
The relatively sedentary Plains Pawnee thought nothing of crossing 
600 miles of desert (Tixier, 1844, p. 223). Fr. Hennepin sang Te Deum 
in the presence of ‘‘a great many Iroquese who came from a warlike 
expedition against Savages of Titonha [Teton]’’ (Hennepin, 1698, vol. 
1,p.107). Therange of Iroquois travel was enormous, but susceptible 

982306—53——19 


272 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


to exaggeration. (Cf. West, 1934, vol. 1, p. 119; Hodge, 1912; and 
Fenton, 1940.) 

If desert travel held no terrors, the waterways offered a real conven- 
ience. Thus Hennepin encountered the calumet in his voyages on the 
Great Lakes and along the upper Mississippi. The pipe of peace, 
which he received from the Potawatomi (Hennepin, 1698, vol. 1, p. 
124), was a pass and safe conduct even to the Koroa (Hennepin, 1683, 
pp. 207-209). By the vast tentacles of the great River the calumet 
connected the Iroquois on the headwaters of the Ohio with the 
Chitimacha on the Mississippi Delta (Le Page Du Pratz, 1758, vol. 1, 
p. 108) and the tribes near the remote source of the Missouri; and the 
dance accompanied the calumet. A few descriptions have accumulated 
through the miles and the centuries. 


BETWEEN THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE GREAT LAKES 
(CHIPPEWA, MENOMINEE, WINNEBAGO, ILLINOIS) 


The more northerly Iroquois and missionary route was traversed by 
the Sauk and Fox, as they retreated in 1650 from Saginaw Bay before 
the Iroquois and in 1733 from Green Bay to the Wapsipinicon River in 
Iowa, before White encroachment (Kellogg, 1925, pp. 70, 99, 330-333.) 
As we may expect, their Pipe Dance typifies the area, though modified 
by time and location. 

Fairly recently Miss Densmore witnessed a Chippewa contest dance 
retained to this day. It is their ‘‘good time dance,”’ yet of great an- 
tiquity and derived from the manitou. 

In this dance a man carried a pipestem and his body was supposed to represent 
the pipe. The dancer never rose erect, but took a crouching or squatting posture 
. . . Many contortions of the body were used and the antics of the dancers were 
considered very amusing. Only one man danced at atime. When he had fin- 
ished dancing, he presented the pipestem to another, who was obliged to accept 
it and dance; he transferred also the rattle which he carried. . . 

A characteristic of the music . . . is that a sharp, short beat of the drum is 
frequently given, followed by an instant of silence. When this drum beat is heard 
the dancer pauses in whatever attitude he may chance to be and remains motion- 
less until the drum beat is resumed. [Densmore, 1913, pp. 293-296.] 

Three of these songs are reproduced by Miss Densmore. ‘They are 
in binary form and fairly archaic tertial scales, nonetheless unlike 
the Iroquois Eagle Dance. 

Today ‘‘the comedy angle of representing the pipe . . . has given 
way to plain competition to outdance the others”’ (Mason, 1944, p. 68). 

The Menominee compete in an analagous Tobacco Dance after the 
Drum Dance or “‘cawunowin” (Densmore, 1932, pp. 184-187). Two 
men outdo each other in fantastic acrobatics, shaking their arms like 
a fish, manipulating a hoop in intricate steps and circlings. A group 
of men and women dance on the periphery, entirely for amusement, in 
this ‘‘degenerate form of the Calumet.” 


KuratH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 273 


A century earlier the Winnebago performed a similar dance as a 
treat to their grandfathers before departing on their fall hunts, as de- 
scribed in General Ellis’ Recollections in 1821 (in West, 1934). 

The whole tribe assembled in front of the house in a large circle, the dancer and 
the drummer—the master of ceremonies—in the center: first they gave the pipe 
dance, an amusing affair, a single one dancing at a time, the trick of which seemed 
to be to keep time with the drum and especially to suspend action instantaneously 
with the cessation of the instrument—the dancer to remain in the exact attitude 
in which the cessation of the drum caught him. [West, 1934, vol. 1, p. 249.] 

The most eloquent account for this area dates from 1673, by Fr. 

Jacques Marquette. For the Illinois he gives us not only the dance 
but song samples as well (Marquette, ed. Beckwith, 1908, pp. 27-29; 
ed. Thwaites, 1900, vol. 59, pp. 131-187, 311). The calumet was the 
focal object in peace and honorific celebrations. The stem was— 
a stick two feet long, as thick as a common cane, and pierced in the middle; it is 
ornamented with the head and neck of different birds of beautiful plumage... . 
The ceremony commenced with a rhythmic handling by all guests who on their 
entrance, held the pipe in both hands and danced it in cadence to a song. The 
ensuing dance consisted of two parts, a variety of gyrations by a special dancer 
with the “calumet of the sun,” to songs by a chorus of men and women; and a 
mock combat. 

Sometimes he presents it to the sun as if he wished to smoke; sometimes he 
inclines it to the earth; and at other times he spreads its wings as if for it to fly; 
at other times, he approaches it to the mouth of the spectator, the whole in cadence. 

The second [scene] consists in a combat, to the sound of a kind of drum which 
succeeds the songs, or rather joins them, harmonizing quite well. The dancer 
beckons to some brave to come and take the arms on the mat, and challenges him 
to fight to the sound of the drums; the other approaches, takes his bow and arrow, 
and begins a duel against the dancer who has no defense but the calumet. [Mar- 
quette, ed. Beckwith, 1903, pp. 27-29; ed. Thwaites, 1900, vol. 59, pp. 131-137, 
311.] 

A final part consisted of a speech delivered by the holder of the 
calumet, relating his battle victories. He received a gift, then pre- 
sented the calumet to another who handed it to a third, and so on. 
Finally it was presented to the guest tribe. 

The contest element, which has become paramount in the modern 
versions of this area, forms a secondary section, as among the Cherokee 
and Iroquois. But eagle mime is absent, except as implied in the 
spreading of the pipe’s wings. We shall never know whether this 
concept was really absent or merely escaped the good father’s atten- 
tion. At all events, the contribution is of the utmost importance, not 
only because of its date, but also because of similarities to the Iroquois 
Eagle Dance in action and music. Of these songs we will say more 
during a general musical comparison. For the present we continue 
our westward journey. 


274 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


TRIBES OF THE MISSOURI AND YELLOWSTONE RIVERS 
(GENERAL, PLAINS-CREE, ASSINIBOIN, MANDAN) 

In their present Iowa home the Fox Indians adjoin the heart of the 
calumet cult, though at the time of most intensive diffusion they were 
located on Green Bay of modern Wisconsin. The material for the 
pipes came from a very sacred quarry in Minnesota, north of the Falls 
of St. Anthony (fig. 30); the tobacco originated with the agricultural 
Pawnee (Wissler, 1912, p. 31; Murie, 1914, p. 641). Among the tribes 
of the Northern Plains, the calumet served its original function of 
smoking in almost all ceremonies. The Oglala Sioux shaman divined 
the outcome of a war party by smoking (Wissler, 1912, p.59). Special 
pipe-bearers danced exclusively with their calumets and rattles in the 
gatherings of the military societies, two bearers in the Oglala tokala, 
kagi—yoha, sotka, and wic’iska (Wissler, 1912, pp. 31-34) ; four dancers 
in the Blackfoot All-Smoking Ceremony, in quadruple presentation to 
the sun to four songs repeated four times (Wissler, 1913, pp. 445-447). 
As generally in the Great Plains, women joined male singers who en- 
circled a huge drum.4 

Despite the importance of these ceremonies, few authors convey 
any idea of the form. Skinner describes the Plains-Cree observance 
in a manner reminiscent of the Illinois celebration. In the Sacred 
Pipestem Dance the bowl was filled and placed beside the stem. 

The keeper, standing before the altar, prayed to all directions and 
then placed the pipe bowl on a pile of offerings of clothes, etc., laid 
before the altar. He next took up the stem, prayed, and raising the 
pipe heavenward sang a song in part as follows:— 


Hai ye, ye, ye (four times repeated) 
He, he he he 
Kezikomaskiniyan, etc. 


As he sings he turns to all points of the compass holding out the stem. All the 
others then join in the singing, and the keeper begins to dance, swinging the stem 
before him over his head and shoulders in a series of graceful arcs. [Skinner, 
1914, p. 537.] 


The combat idea, here absent, motivated the Assiniboin Pipe Dance 
of the previous century—an intensification of the Chippewa-Winne- 
bago type. According to George Catlin — 


. . . the young men who were to compose the dance had gathered themselves 
around a small fire... One singer commenced beating on a drum or tambour- 
ine, accompanied by his voice; then one of the young men seated sprang instantly 
on his feet and commenced singing in time with the taps of the drum, and leaping 
about on one foot and another in the most violent manner imaginable. . . 
brandishing his fists in the faces of each one who was seated, until at length he 


11 Other types of Pipe ceremonies: Teton, Densmore, 1918, p. 66; Omaha and Dakota, Lowie, 1915 ec, pp. 
96-98; Crow, Lowie, 1913 b, p. 150, and 1935, pp. 93, 174, 196, 210; Arikara, Maximilian, 1843 (ed. 1906), p. 407; 
Blackfoot, Wissler, 1913, pp. 403, 413, 444. 


KvRatTH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 275 


grasped one of them by his hands, and jerked him forcibly upon his feet .. . 
[This continued] until all were upon their feet; and at last joined in the most fright- 
ful gesticulations and yells ... ([Catlin, 1841, pp. 62-63, fig. 32.] 

In a very different Mandan ceremony of adoption, the company 
sing and two special male dancers, ‘‘accompanied by the drum and 
schischihkue’ ” (rattles)... keep time to the music with their 
pipes (Maximilian, 1843, p. 320). 


EAGLE WAND AND CALUMET 


Eagle mime and Calumet Dance were combined into elaborate 
ceremonies among the agricultural tribes around the confluence of 
the Missouri and Platte Rivers, in the very center of the continent. 
This prolonged, composite ceremony flowered fully into the hako of 
the Caddoan Pawnee, fortunately recorded in all its phases by 
Fletcher, Murie, and Tracy; and into the slightly less elaborate 
Omaha wa’wa’, recorded by Dorsey and Fletcher. Like the much 
simpler Mandan Pipe Dance, they were adoption ceremonies, but 
they included a wealth of amazingly combined symbols. 


PAWNEE HAKO 


The hako, which could take place at any time of year except the 
winter, was a prayer for offspring, plentiful crops, and long life. 
Intense reverence was lavished on the ceremonial objects—an ear of 
corn, a wildcat skin, two squash rattles representing the breast of 
the mother, above all, two calumet stems: rak’katittu, with brown 
feathers as the female principle, and raha’takaru with white feathers 
as the male principle. In addition to the various rites centered on 
the child, the most important procedures included a smoke invoca- 
tion in the thirteenth ritual, by the priest or ku’rahus; purificatory 
sweeping with eagle wings in the eighteenth ritual, by two doctors; 
an eagle dance of thanks in the nineteenth ritual, by two special 
dancers; boasting episodes just before and after this dance; and 
distribution of gifts in this and in the final, twentieth ritual. 

The dance of thanks is accompanied by songs which differ from 
others concerning the pipes and the corn (Fletcher, 1904, pp. 249-253): 

When the dance song begins (intoned by the ku’rahus, then the other singers), 
the two young men rise, each holding in his left hand, high above his head, a 
feathered stem and in his right a rattle. Both start at the same time and as 
they leap and dance they wave the feathered stems to simulate the flight of the 


eagle. The dancer with the brown-eagle feathered stem goes from the north 
around by the south and pauses when he reaches the place where the dancer 


12 This rattle and its name had a wide distribution: Choctaw, chichiquotia (Swanton, 1918, p. 69); Chiti- 
macha chichicois (Swanton, 1911, p. 340); Mandan she-shee-quoi (Catlin, 1841, I: 123), schischique’ (Maxi- 
milian, 1843, p. 293); Chippewa cicigwan (Densmore, 1910, p. 11);and Naskapi cic’kwun (Speck, 1935, p. 172). 
It was one of the shamans’ tools. Chichigone (Chippewa shishikwe “rattlesnake”) was a general Algon- 
quian term for rattle. 


276 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ Bunn, 156 


with the white-eagle feathered stem started, while the latter goes outside the 
path of the former by the south and pauses when he reaches the place at the 
north where the dancer bearing the brown-eagle feathered stem had stood. 
There the two dancers stand until the song is finished, when they cross over 
and take their own proper places. . . Whenever the song is repeated, they 
rise and dance again in the same manner. 

The circle of the white eagle is outside that of the brown eagle, for the white 
eagle is the male and its place is outside to defend the female . . . the 
two move in opposite directions so that they may come together; the male and 
female must conjoin. 

There are two dance songs; they both mean the same and there is no order 
in which they must be sung. 

The words mean ‘‘Now fly, you eagles, as we give thanks to the Children.” 
[Fletcher, 1904, p. 253.] 


(See also Fletcher, 1904, diagram, p. 248, fig. 180; two songs pp. 254 
and 255.) 

This circular dance and its peculiar melodies did not find an exact 
equivalent in the same ceremony among adjacent tribes, yet may 
have served as prototype. 


OMAHA WA’WA" 


The Omaha Eagle Dance is preceded by a ceremony of the Ap- 
proach of the Pipes. ‘In this song the stems are waved to the 
rhythm of the rattles shaken with an accented beat but no drum 
is used.’”’ (Fletcher and La Flesche, 1911, p. 383.) Eagle Dance 
also used a duple drumbeat and a whistle from the wingbone of 
an eagle. 


The singers started the music and the two young men, holding the feathered 
stems high above their heads, with a light, leaping step danced in two straight 
lines to and from the east, simulating the flight of the eagle. The line taken 
by the dancers signified that by following the teachings of the ceremony, the 
straight red line of the pipes, one could go forth and return in peace to his lodge 
and have no fear. As the young men danced—a dance that was full of wild 
grace and beauty—it might happen that a man would advance and step before 
one of the dancers, who at once handed him the pipe. The man recounted 
his deeds and laid the pipe on the ground. The dance and music ceased, for 
the act was a challenge. [Fletcher and La Flesche, 1911, p. 399.] 


When the pipe was taken up by someone of the party who could 
match the deed, the pipe was restored and the dance resumed. Then 
followed gifts of ponies. ‘‘When all the ponies had been received the 
last dance came to an end”’ (idem). 

The Omaha ceremony consisted of the formal presentation of the 
pipes by a man of one gens to a man of another gens (Fletcher, 1893, 
p. 35). It focused on a child, called the hu’ga, symbolizing peace. 
The corn had no place. The eagle was spoken of as Mother (ibid., 
1911, p.379). The two dancers, however, symbolized male and female. 


KuratH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 277 


The songs for the dance—Nene bazhan, ‘shaking the pipes’? ™— 
were different from those used in other parts of the ceremony. ‘In 
these songs there are generally two divisions, an introduction and an 
accompaniment to the dance movements. As the dancer requires 
great agility it is of short duration” (Fletcher, 1893, p. 40). 

Miss Fletcher’s description is confirmed by Dorsey’s (1884, pp. 
279-281). 

Tradition claims the Omaha as comparatively late arrivals in this 
area, as arrivals from the Great Lakes, as usurpers who displaced 
the peaceful Arikara and pushed them northward.* Peace was 
cemented between this Caddoan branch and the Siouan Omaha, 
Iowa, Ponca, and Cheyenne, by means of this ceremony (Fletcher, 
1893, p. 74). 


IOWA WAIE"0WACI 


According to George Catlin, the Iowa Calumet or Pipe of Peace 
Dance was given at the conclusion of peace, in honor of a warrior, 
or in ceremonial adoption of “brothers” or ‘‘sisters.’”’ The dancers 
held the calumet, ornamented with eagle’s quills, in the left hand, 
and a rattle in the other. (Catlin, 1844, pp. 20-21; also Skinner, 
1915, p. 709; Miner, 1911, p. xxxiii). 


To commence this dance the pipes and rattles are handed to the dancers by 
the greatest warrior present, who makes his boast as he gives them, and the 
one on whom the honor is conferred has the right to boast of it all his life 

the two wand bearers . . . begin a beautiful graceful dance waving 
the feathered wands through the air before them as they sing about health and 
prosperity. ([Catlin, 1844, pp. 20—-21.] 


In the Eagle Dance, Hakon-E-Crase, as separately described by 
Catlin, 


each dancer imagines himself a soaring eagle, and as they dance forward from 
behind the musicians, they take the positions of eagles heading against the wind 
and looking down, preparing to make the swoop on their prey below them; the 
wind seems too strong for them, and they fall back, and repeatedly advance 
forward, imitating the chattering of that bird, with the whistles carried in their 
hands whilst they sing. ([Catlin, 1844, p. 20.] 


Again quoting from Catlin: 


The drum, with their voices formed the music for this truly picturesque and 
exciting dance . . . The song is addressed to their favorite bird the war-eagle, 
and each dancer carries a fan made of the eagle’s tail in his left hand, as he dances, 
and by his attitudes endeavors to imitate the motions of the soaring eagle. 

This, being part of the war dance,!5 is a boasting dance; and at the end of the 
strain in each song some one of the warriors steps forth in an exited speech . . . 
After this the dance proceeds with increasing spirit. (Catlin, 1852, pp. 17-18.] 


18 Compare the Iroquois term gane’’9dadg’, ‘‘shaking a (calumet) fan.” 

4 Lowie reports no comparable ceremony for the Arikara, unless the secularized Hopping Society 
(kaxkawis) was a vestige (1915a, p. 672). 

15 Called “‘Eh-ros-ka”’ by Catlin (1852, p. 19). The Iruska fire handling society? 


278 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


The chief shaman flourishes a spear during his speech. The ceremony 
includes the giving of handsome presents. 

Karly in the twentieth century Skinner (1915, p. 716) reports the 
Eagle Dance as obsolete but the Calumet Dance still in vogue, but 
the formal and functional similarity to the hako type suggests that 
we are here dealing with one ceremony, whose several parts were not 
recognized by Catlin as connected. The pipe dance, in fact, already 
suggests bird flight and appears to contrast with the Eagle Dance 
chiefly by the type of wand and the more realistic mime of the latter. 


TETON HU'KA 


“The Iowa,” says Skinner (1915, p. 706), “claim to have originated 
the ceremony, but it is . . . found in some form among the Omaha, 
Pawnee, Oto, Kansa, Osage, Plains-Cree,” also among the Teton as 
hu’ka rite (see Densmore, 1918, pp. 68-77; music but no dance allu- 
sion). The Kansa mocu watci evidently resembled the Pawnee and 
Omaha ceremonies (Skinner, 1915, pp. 759-760); and so did the 
Ponca wawa’ watci (ibid., p. 789). All of these tribes considered the 
wands as male and female except for the Iowa, who considered them 
both as male. All elements were not equally emphasized, thus the 
counting coup less among the Pawnee than the Siouan neighbors, but 
the corn more so. 

OSAGE MADICINE DU CHARBON 


Among the seminomadic Osage the ceremony either escaped record- 
ing, or else strongly emphasized belligerence, for the only dance 
noted even by the observant Victor Tixier is the Médicine du Charbon 
(Tixier, 1844, pp. 211-215, ill. p. 225). In preparation for war, 
warriors blackened themselves with charcoal and danced around camp 
in two opposite groups with ‘‘maniacal contortions . . . beating 
drums or blowing ts-tséhs (reed flutes); some took up a warlike song 
which they accompanied by striking their fans on some piece of wood.” 
Among other objects they carried a calumet, a small calabash filled 
with pebbles, wings of calumet birds (bald eagle) which they used as 
afan. In the picture they hop or crouch low. The dance was pre- 
ceded by a ceremony of striking the post and boasting, and a War 
Dance by successive soloists, jumping on both feet and enacting 
battle mime, as in Iroquois wasase (Tixier, 1844, p. 215). It is pos- 
sible that the Osage devised a different form from that of their arch- 
enemies, the Pawnee. Even if this dance does not represent the 
calumet ceremony, notwithstanding similar paraphernalia and actions, 
yet it is of interest in showing the merging of the various concepts 
and the recurrence of the same elements in dances variously for peace 
and war (Fenton, this vol., pp. 173, 195). 

Whereas this last-named dance recalls the Iroquois War Dance 


Kurata] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 279 


type, the other ceremonies of the Central Plains suggests Iroquois 
Eagle Dance in all essential points—the wand, eagle mime, boast, 
adoption. Of course, there are differences, especially in the greater 
length and elaborateness of the Plains ritual (4 days and nights) 
and calumet.!® Yet we have noted differences between adjacent 
tribes and must remember intervening time and space. The Omaha 
variant would appear more similar to that of the Iroquois, in the pair- 
ing of two males, the straight-lined progression, and, as we shall see 
later, the music. But that does not imply priority for the Omaha. 
The different sections of the hako type also correspond to the frag- 
ments surviving among the Cherokee. Possibly also among other 
tribes east of the southern Mississippi, along the Tennessee River. 


THE SOUTHEAST 


In southeastern Illinois the Ohio River forms a fork with the Mis- 
sissippi, just below the entrance of the Tennessee and Cumberland 
Rivers, and not far south of the point where the Missouri brings the 
waters of the Yellowstone, Teton, Platte, Kansas, and Osage Rivers. 
In the nineteenth century the Shawnee occupied this fork. But they 
ranged westward to the Pawnee and eastward along the Wabash to 
Lake Erie, and to the source of the the Ohio River, which they had 
inhabited next to the Seneca in the late eighteenth century (Fenton, 
1940, p. 241). They called the Seneca Elder Brothers, and bestowed 
other affectionate kinship terms on other tribes which they contacted 
amicably or belligerently—the Delaware, Cherokee, Wyandot, Sauk 
and Fox, Ottawa (Voegelin and Kinietz, 1939, p. 9). They had the 
feathered peace pipe (ibid., pp. 23-24), and they once had an Eagle 
Dance “where male dancers crouched, hopped, etc.’ (Voegelin, 
communication). 

In a communication to Fenton, Dr. Erminie Voegelin states that 
all Gawakila men could dance, but that only 12 middle-aged men 
executed the Eagle Dance, a different group each year until 1862. 
They wore feather coats with natural wings attached at the shoulders, 
but they carried no fans. They moved the wings with their arms, 
carried eagle claws on their feet, and an eagle bill on their nose. Four 
singers sang 12 songs, accompanied with a drum and horn rattle, for 
the 12 dancers. In the morning the dancers came in from the woods 
and proceeded to an arbor in the western part of the dance ground. 
Here they hopped around in imitation of eagles (clockwise?). All 
morning they danced in a squatting position; they hopped around and 
“hollered like eagles.’ If someone threw tobacco, they bent over 


16 For illustrations of Plains calumets, see: Pawnee (10 splendid feathers), Fletcher, 1904, pls. 84-87; Iowa, 
West, 1934, vol. 2: pls. 185, 189; Sioux, ibid., pl. 182; Blackfoot, ibid., pl. 182; Assiniboine, Denig, 1930, p. 437, 
fig. 31, pl. 68 (triple attachments); general, Catlin 1841, vol. 2: p. 98 (8 quills, horsehair). Other types: 
with eagle effigy, West, 1934, vol. 2: pl. 97; tomahawk pipe, Wisconsin, ibid., pls. 241-245, 256-257. 


280 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bunn. 156 


like birds and picked it up with their bill, preserving a squatting 
position, upper legs horizontal, weight on toes, arms bent and close to 
the body. At intervals between dances they would rest squatting 
down, but would never sit on chairs. Their dances were not sur- 
rounded by any of the calumet activities, of pipe smoking, scalp 
dancing, or whooping, though they might be associated with cure. 

In every respect this type resembles the masked eagle mime of the 
Pueblo Indians, except for multiplied numbers which recall the Choc- 
taw version next on our list. 

Happily , the Choctaw Eagle Dance was observed by George Catlin 
as a celebration after a ball game (lacrosse?), along with other dances 
held out of doors. His painting shows a crouch similar to that of the 
Iroquois, but depicts warclubs in the right hand; and the descriptions 
show other differences, tending toward the scalp dance. 

The Eagle Dance, a very pretty scene, which is got up by their young men in 
honor of that bird, for whom they seem to have a religious regard. This pic- 
turesque dance was given by 12 or 16 men whose bodies were chiefly naked and 
painted white, with white clay, and each holding in his hand the tail of an eagle, 
while his head was also decorated with the eagle’s quill. Spears were stuck in 
the ground, around which the dance was performed by four men at a time (clock- 
wise), who had simultaneously at the beat of the drum, jumped up from the ground 
where they had all sat in rows of four, one row immediately behind the other, 
and ready to take the place of the first four men when they had left the ground 
fatigued, which they did by hopping or jumping around behind the rest, and 
taking their seat, ready to come up again in their turn, after each of the other 
sets had been through the same form. 

In this dance, the steps or rather jumps, were different from anything I had 
witnessed before, as the dancers were squat down, with their bodies almost touch- 
ing the ground, in a severe and most difficult posture, as will have been seen in 
the drawing. [Catlin, 1841, vol. 2, p. 144, fig. 227.] 

The warclub and circular formation were associated by Catlin with 
the Pipe of Peace Dance of general distribution, but with a calumet 
in the left hand instead of an eagle’s wing. Farther north this cele- 
brated the closing of hostilities, along with a smoking ceremony 
(Catlin, 1841, vol. 2, p. 274). We have no way of knowing whether 
the Choctaw form characterized the Southeast at that time, for dearth 
of reports. It certainly differs from that of the modern Cherokee, 
unless we consider it as a blend of the three parts of the Cherokee 
Victory Dance. 

A century before Catlin the Calumet Dance, but not the Eagle 
Dance, was observed by French travelers all along the lower Missis- 
sippi Valley. The Natchez Calumet Dance took the form of a spec- 
tacular processional, according to Charlevoix, Le Petit, Le Page Du 
Pratz, and Dumont (in Swanton, 1911, pp. 134-138). According to 
Charlevoix, “Treaties of peace and alliances are made with great 
pomp ... Commonly the embassy is composed of 30 men and 6 


Kvrati] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 281 


women. Six of the best voices march at the head of this train and sing 
aloud, the rest follow, and the chichicoué serves to regulate the time... 
those who carry the calumet dance as they sing, and turn themselves 
on every side... and make a great many grimaces and contor- 
tions . . . then they rub him [the great chief] with their calumet from 
head to foot.’””’ Dumont: ‘One of them carries in his left hand an 
earthen pot covered with a dressed deerskin stretched tightly over this 
pot ...which serves him as a drum. All answer with cries which 
they utter in cadence. Some bear chichicoiias . . . However, the one 
who bears the calumet makes it spring about, sometimes low down, 
sometimes in the air, making a thousand different contortions with 
his legs and his entire body.” There followed a smoking ceremony, 
a recital of distinguished deeds, and distribution of presents. 

The Taensa greeted Pénicaut and Iberville and sang their calumet 
of peace (Swanton, 1911, p. 268). On approaching a Houma village, 
Iberville was met by three singers with a calumet of peace, “raised as 
high as their arms could reach” (ibid., 285). The Koroa gave a 
calumet to M. de la Salle (ibid., p. 327). 

That the Cherokee had the ceremony as early as 1761, we know 
from Lieutenant Timberlake, who was showered with calumets 3 
feet long, ornamented with feathers, deer’s hair, and quills (Timber- 
lake, 1765, p. 263). In one dance they ‘“‘caper, for a minute the music 
stops, and they relate the manner of taking scalps, then continue the 
dance”’ (ibid., p. 92). 

All we know of the Catawba ritual is the existence of 5-foot staffs, 
and the tradition of a dance before 1890, with “feather waving” 
(Speck, 1939, pp. 55-57). Or is this the Feather Dance, like the great 
double round of the Creek with feathered sticks (Speck, 1911, pp. 
186-189) and of the Iroquois and the eighteenth century Cherokee 
(Timberlake, 1765, p. 107)? 

All we know of an analogous Delaware dance is the Nighthawk 
Dance of the Six Nations residents, who may have taken it over from 
the Cayuga or at least have greatly modified it. Nighthawk wings 
were replaced by feather wands, and turtle rattles by cow-horn 
rattles. Two to four men hopped in a line as do the Cayuga, as in- 
vocation for a healthful season, during the Green Corn festival and 
the tenth night of the Bear rite (Speck, 1945, p. 76). This is now 
extinct, as in fact is the Six Nations Delaware ceremonialism, and as, 
in general, is Southeastern ceremonialism—barring Cherokee vestiges 
and possible survivals or revivals in Northeastern Oklahoma. 


THE THUNDERBIRD 


In all of these ceremonies and their remnants the great sky dweller 
was mimed as he is among the Iroquois, without imitative costume 


282 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLL. 156 


such as we find in the Pueblos. The feathers on a stem, or at times a 
wing held in the left hand, provide the only palpable illusion of feath- 
ered flight, beyond the skilled postures. The Mississippian type also 
differs from that of the Rio Grande by war associations in contrast 
to rain, thunder, and cure. 

The last-named far-western function prevails among the Iroquois. 
So does the widespread eagle cult of the Pueblos (Parsons, 1925, p. 68). 
Comanche (ibid.), Plains (Mooney, 1896, pp. 992-993), and the South- 
east. 


NORTHWEST COAST 


The thunder association, remaining in the Iroquois War Dance, 
formerly motivated Pawnee ceremonies (Murie, 1914, pp. 559-570), 
Teton heyoka rituals (Densmore, 1918, pp. 157-170), taken over 
from the Omaha (Wissler, 1916, p. 866), and the Northwest Coast 
Thunderbird Dance. 

This last phenomenon, which may or may not be connected with 
the more southerly manifestations, involves realistic costume and en- 
actment to strange archaic songs. In the Klokali dance of the Nitinat 
tribe, the latter part of July, the performer holds in his extended 
arms a blanket with eagle feathers suspended along the edge (Dens- 
more, 1943 a, pp. 56-57). In the Bella Coola Midwinter appearance 
of the Thunderbird, much rumbling, commotion and a beaklike mask 
intensify the terrifying illusion (McIlwraith, 1948, vol. 2, pp. 146-147). 
This concept is as old and standardized as any items of this compara- 
tively recent culture. 


RECENT ADAPTATIONS FROM PUEBLOS 


In addition to these, one might say, “natural’’ diffusions of the 
Thunderbird, conscious adaptations have carried the Pueblo Eagle 
Dance type to more easterly tribes. For instance, the young Fox 
dancers, Charles and Frank Pushetonequa, perform an excellent ver- 
sion which they recomposed from Southwestern prototype, according 
to their own admission. The Ottawa, Dave Kenoshmeg of Cross 
Village, Mich., performs a similar dance at the annual August Fair, 
under the guidance of the local priest, Fr. Bertram. These and 
possible other borrowings are recent, and independent of the develop- 
ment of the Iroquois Eagle Dance but they show the ease and honesty 
of such adaptation. 

COMANCHE EAGLE DANCE 


The modern Comanche version may have a similar recent origin in 
Oklahoma, despite the legend that has become attached to it. Or it 
may have been an exchange product with the Pueblos, in the raids 
that gave rise to the Pueblo Comanche Dance. In the kanani kiyake 
a single male dancer imitates the eagle (communication Cebyn Dwajty 


KvratH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 283 


Maufaunwy). It has also become a show piece, as partly on the Rio 
Grande, and entirely further East, in contrast with the ceremonialism 
attached to the Calumet-Eagle dances till they breathed their last. 


THE GRASS DANCE 


Since the middle of the nineteenth century the Great Plains have 
developed another, antithetical offshoot of this ceremonial complex; 
antithetical to the Eagle Dance in the war emphasis, dwindling of 
eagle references, individualistically-communal and ecstatic though 
virtuoso execution, as against the set routine of modern eagle dances. 

The Teton-Sioux recognize two varieties of Grass Dance, that of 
the old men, in a clockwise circle, and that of the younger generation 
without formation (Densmore, 1918, pp. 468-470). In the older 
version ‘‘the men imitate motions of the eagle and graceful birds’’. 
According to Lowie (1915 c, pp. 95-96), ‘“‘only men take part, and they 
move briskly, sometimes in pairs, sometimes separately, vigorously 
stamping the ground with their feet, and frequently mimicking mar- 
tial exploits.”” The musicians seated in the center around a big drum 
strike up a tune, later reinforced by the voices of some of the women; 
and the members of one of the four men’s societies arise to perform 
the vigorous turnings and bendings, described by Mason (1944, pp. 
17-40). They give vent to penetrating cries and brandish weapons. 
Sometimes in the end ‘‘the drum continues a moment or two,whereupon 
one of the men arises and dances around the circle, singing a short 
phrase, thus “dancing the tail’? (Lowie, 1915 c, p.97). Itis an honor 
to be selected as tail dancer (Densmore, 1918, p. 472). 

This Grass Dance or Omaha Dance is so-called because, in the first 
place, the dancers carry a bunch of grass in their belts as a symbol of 
scalps (Densmore, 1918, p. 468); and in the second place because it 
came from the Omaha to the Teton Sioux, by way of the Yankton, 
about 1860 (Wissler, 1916, p. 866). It spread to all of the Plains 
tribes, as far as the Shoshone (Lowie, 1915 b, p. 822), and it bounced 
back to the Omaha and their neighbors, and by way of the Potawatomi 
reached the Central Algonquians as the Drum or Dream Dance (Wis- 
sler, 1916, p. 868, and Barrett, 1911, pp. 251-406). The Central 
Plains tribes have called it the Chief’s Drum Dance (Iowa, Skinner, 
1915, pp. 720-724), or the Modern Iruska (Kit’kahaxki Pawnee; 
Murie, 1914, p. 628). Indeed, Grass Dance combines features of the 
Calumet Dance and ancient Iruska, with its four pipe-dancers (Paw- 
nee), bird-headed stick (Crow and Cheyenne), and iruska trick of 
fetching dog meat out of a boiling kettle. After a feast the dog bones 
are placed on the ground by four successive dancers who count coup 
on them (Murie, 1914, p. 624; Wissler, 1912, pp. 48-52; Lowie, 1913 b, 
pp. 200-206; Skinner, 1915, pp. 720-724). There follows much gift- 


284 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


display with boasts, blankets, and horses instead of the coins and 
crackers of the Iroquois. 

The songs, which Murie claims to be of Pawnee origin, disseminated 
among the Arikara, Crow, and Dakotas, and were lately supplemented 
by original compositions (Murie, 1914, p. 629). They are attributed to 
the Omaha by Miss Densmore’s Teton informant, also alongside new 
compositions. These songs, fortunately reproduced by Miss Dens- 
more (1918, Nos. 95-200), are Siouan in character, yet in an interesting 
way show affinities with hako and Iroquois Eagle Dance songs. This 
affinity corresponds to the special baroque development of the dance 
itself, apparently so far progressed from the dignified Eagle Dance. 
A similar breaking up is manifest in the Iroquois wasase (War Dance), 
which may be a peripheral form of the Grass Dance, as suggested by 
its steps and songs. 

The Grass Dance and its derivatives proved a significant, non- 
narcotic emotional outlet in a time of stress, during the large-scale 
land sessions in 1860-87 (see Billington, 1949, pp. 651 ff.). Its spec- 
tacular spread, observed by able scholars and interpreted by Wissler, 
practically coincides with that of the Calumet Dance (see fig. 30). 


THE CATTARAUGUS BIRD DANCE 


Our round trip concludes with a historical relic of the Eagle Dance 
at Cattaraugus Reservation. Among the sources already scoured by 
Fenton, two pages contribute to our search. About 1890, when 
Harriet Maxwell Converse observed the ‘‘Bird Dance” and the Seneca 
boy artist, Jesse Cornplanter, sketched the ritual, the four dancers 
squatted and pecked, faced each other in two pairs, and bore fans 
much as they do today (Converse, 1908, pp. 71-72). But the song 
“arranged” by Frank B. Converse, the musician husband of the 
writer, cannot by any stretch of the imagination be equated with any 
of therecordedsongs. Its sequential outline and tonality and its return 
to the original level relate it to the first introductory Coldspring chant, 
but its range of 11 notes and its bold intervals exceed those of surviving 
melodies. ‘The absence of percussion notation, of texts, and of com- 
ments precludes further identification of this tantalizing fragment. 

At the turn of the century the Eagle Dance featured as one of the 
most prominent and admired Jroquois dances, confined, because of 
its difficulty, to a few virtuoso performers. In this statement Mrs. 
Converse is backed by Arthur C. Parker, another devotee to Seneca 
ceremonialism (Parker, 1909, pp. 174-176). 


KuratxH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 285 


GANEGWA’E AND ITS RELATIVES 
DANCE 


Of the diverse forms we have passed in review, not one corresponds 
exactly to the Iroquois Eagle Dance; yet all of them find an echo in 
one or several of the elements listed by Fenton (p. 179). These 
elements are here listed and are followed by their distributions among 
tribes to the West. 


ELEMENTS 

(1) Pairs of youths or men... 

Single pair West of Missouri, all types, including modern Fox. 

Male and female symbol, Central Plains and Southwest. 

Doubling on periphery—four Iroquois, Choctaw, Blackfoot. 

Doubling on periphery—eight Cherokee. 

With Seneca moiety opposition; Onondaga, Cayuga, Cherokee linear. 

Successive soloists, older forms East of Mississippi. 

Simultaneous soloists, newer form of Grass Dance type. 


(2) “... holding a rattle in the right hand and a feather fan in the left...” 
General distribution except on northern and southern periphery. 
Choctaw and Osage wing in hand, Choctaw warclub in right hand. 
Southwest and Northwest mask and winged arms. 


(3) ‘f . . . crouch swaying and advance . . . retreat hopping...” 


General distribution even in recent nonmimetic forms. 
Advance usually in straight line; circular—Pueblo, Pawnee, Choctaw. 


(4) “ ...a@ speaker ... strikes a pole ... to recite some record of personal 
achievement .. .” 
Boasting, a Northern Plains characteristic, enacted everywhere, anciently 
among Iroquois, in hako area and in Far West; speeches everywhere 
East of Rockies. General in war dances. 


(5) “* . . . he distributes presents . . .” 


Gifts, formerly pretentious, everywhere except in Southeast and South- 
west. Not confined to war-calumet-eagle complex. 


(6) ‘. . . After the dance, the master of ceremonies passes an animal head.’’ 
Terminal feast, formerly dog meat, generally in pipe war, Iruska, and 
Grass Dance ceremonies of Missouri-Mississippi-Great Lakes. 
Modern Iruska combined with counting coup. 
Dog variously replaced by beef, pig, or chicken. 


PATTERNS 


Figure 29 shows the distribution of salient ground plans: circular 
patterns in Southwest and in hako, and in older War Dance forms; 
straight lines in easterly area, with opposition in the Seneca Eagle 
Dance and the Striking-a-stick Dance, breaking up in recent War 
Dance derivatives. 


[BuULL. 156 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


286 


OS” 250% 
~ 
\ \ 
ry \ 
1 - 
ao 
Cs 4 
ee Rs 
ae 


(Legend on following page) 


KuratH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 287 


GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 


The map (fig. 30) shows concentration and combination of all 
forms in the ‘‘Hako area,’”’ among the Central Plains agriculturalists ; 
pairing in this center and in Pueblos, with multiplication on the peri- 
phery; prevalence of eagle mime among southerly agriculturalists, 
Pueblos and hako area, with easterly fanning out; and northerly 
fanning out of Pipe and Grass Dance, notably among hunting tribes. 
The pipestone quarry, north of the Pawnee, is in the territory of 
Dakota Sioux. 

MUSIC 


Musical comparisons are limited by even more fragmentary material 
than are dance forms. Whereas no detailed choreographies are 
available, yet the verbal descriptions and solitary ground plan, 
scattered through the centuries, provide us with some working basis. 
But song renditions are completely absent before Alice Fletcher— 
with one illustrious exception—and are furthermore of doubtful 
accuracy before the days of the phonograph and of the scientific 
attitude. 

Thus in reading back the music that accompanies Father Mar- 
quette’s description of the Illinois Calumet Dance, we must remember 
the missionary opinion of these ceremonies, and furthermore, the 
courtly Pavanes composed in 1735 by Marquette’s compatriot of the 
next generation, Jean Phillipe Rameau, for his “Indes Galantes.” 
Nonetheless, the “song’”’ makes musical and textual sense if considered 
as three songs of varying tonality and character, the last one with the 
largest range. No percussion accompaniment was reproduced. 

Edwin Tracy’s hako transcriptions and Frances Densmore’s Sioux 
and Chippewa songs inspire confidence. But John C. Fillmore 
approached the Omaha songs with the conviction that ‘‘melody is a 
product of the natural harmonic sense and that all efforts to reduce 
primitive music to scales without reference to the natural harmonies 
implied in them prove futile” (Fletcher, 1893, pp. 61-62). Thus 
we cannot know what he may have done to the songs besides harmo- 
nizing them and we mistrust accuracy while respecting his perception 
of their sacred nature. 


Ficure 29.—Intertribal dance patterns. § = singer. F = fire. H = hunka, /, Pueblo 
Eagle Dance. 2, Pawnee Eagle Dance. 3, Omaha Eagle Dance; Siouan Calumet 
Dance, Fox Calumet Dance. 4, Seneca Eagle Dance. 5, Onondaga Eagle Dance; 
Cherokee Eagle Dance; Blackfoot Calumet Dance (with 8 men). 6, Iroquois 
Striking-a-stick (Shawnee?); Cherokee Eagle Dance. 7, Choctaw Eagle Dance; Sauk 
and Fox Victory Dance; Plains Scalp Dance; Older Grass Dance. 8, Iroquois 
Feather, Thanksgiving, and wasase Round Dances. 9, Iroquois wasase War Dance 
(usual plan); newer Grass Dance. 


9823806—53——20 


288 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


INTERTRIBAL COMPARISONS 


(PAWNEE, OMAHA, ILLINOIS, FOX, CHEROKEE, PUEBLO) 


In figs. 31-36 the Tonawanda Eagle Dance songs are placed side 
by side with analogous Calumet and Eagle Dance songs of other 
tribes. The Tonawanda introductory chants show more striking 
resemblances with the western songs than do the chants of the other 
three Iroquois versions; but the actual dance songs are deficient in 
secundal scales. Hence a few Coldspring and Onondaga excerpts 
are included in these illustrations. The Central Plains examples 
show two contrasting tendencies as clearly as the Iroquois songs, 
namely, rhapsodic and formalized songs. 


RHAPSODIC SONGS 


The introduction in the Omaha wawa’ and the pipe-waving invo- 
cation in the Pawnee hako (fig. 32) resemble the Tonawanda intro- 
ductory tobacco invocation chants and concluding song (fig. 31). 
So far as one can judge from the transcription, song 3 of the Illinois 
Calumet ceremony belongs to this same type of free, vertical songs. 
This type is united by the following characteristics: a full scale, with 
a quartal skeleton and concluding secundal play; a wide range from 
8 to 11 notes; syncopations, triplets, and rapid rhythmic figures 
interspersed with simpler units; consecutive structure with sequential 
descent; percussion tremolo, broken at phrase endings and terminating 
in even beats at the end of the song; a slower tempo than dance songs; 
steep descent, sometimes stepwise, sometimes direct, centered around 
the maintone in Tonawanada 1 and wawa’ 1, ending on the maintone 
as the lowest note in the other instances. These traits are not typi- 
cally Iroquoian but, as we shall see later, they pertain to the Northern 
Plains. 

FORMAL DANCE SONGS 


The dance songs of the Pawnee, Omaha, and Fox resemble those 
of the Iroquois in their level trend, with moderate stepwise descents 
of 421 or 532; simpler rhythmic units; a similar concluding formula of 
two short and a long; the recurrence of similar motifs but with a 
variable formula of repetition (figs. 33 and 34). The drum synchro- 
nizes with the voice, with a pause in the middle of the Omaha songs. 
The Cherokee, Illinois, and Pueblo examples stand between these 
conservative songs and the rhapsodic type, by their more descending 
trend, conclusion on the lowest note, and syncopated units. How- 
ever, tertial scales prevail. In general these add up to a triad scale, 


T / APE DANCER. 
\ TT 2A0E OANCERS. 
M™ S3PAME DANCERS. 


IM #08 MORE PIPE 
DANCERS. 


/ EAGLE OANCER. 

2 LAGLE OANCERS. 
FORMORE EAGLE. 
DANCERS. 

BLENOLD EAGLE 

ANO PIPE DANCE. 
CONSECUTIVE 
CONTEST DANCERS. 
GRASS DANCE TYPE. 
FEATHER DANCE 
TYPE. 

COMBINED EAGLE | 
ANO SCALP DANCE. |_| 
PIPESTONE QUARRY. OR 


>b ®OB+ x kkl 


Numb) 
1. Osage 35. Taensa 
2. Gahinnio (Caddo) —1687 35a. Houma 
3. Cherokee 36. Natchez—1758 
4. IDatawba 37. Chitimacha—1758 
5. Sreek 38. Comanche 
Choctaw 39. Kiowa 
58. Koroa—1683 40. Rio Grande Pueblos 


6. 
982306—53 (Face p. 288) 


on 


= 
Wes 


* 


ss 
_ 


or 


i 


a ae 


* 
3 


Ay tS 


me 


a 


LEGEND DO/STRIBVT/ON 


“TT / APE CANCER. 
\ TT 2AME OANCERS. 
M 3PE DANCERS. 
IM 402 MORE PIPE 
OANCERS. 
/ EAGLE OANCER. 
2 LAGLE DANCERS. 
4 OR MORE EAGLE. 
DANCERS. 
BLENDED EAGLE 
ANO PIPE CANCE. 
CONSECUTIVE 
CONTEST DANCERS. 
GRASS OANCE TYPE. 
FEATHER DANCE 
TYPE. 
COMBINED EAGLE 
ANO SCALP DANCE. \\ 
PIPESTONE QUARRY. °° 


b ®O@+ X kKkr 


Prepared by J. Paul Goode. Published by The Univenity of Chicago, Ill. Copyright 1920, by the University of Chicago 
Ficure 30.—Map of distribution, 


. 

Numbers indicate location of tribes in the middle of the 19th century: ah iecia 

1, Onondaga near Syracuse 6a, Ilinois—1673 14. Hidatsa 21. Cheyenne and Arapaho 28. Osage a dha. Eovirca 

2. Coldspring and Cattaraugus Seneca 7. Meskwaki (Fox) 15. Mandan 22, Pawnee 5, eee 36. Natchez—1758 

3. Tonawanda Seneca 8. Winnebago 16, Assiniboine ABS EONCA 2 eee 37. Chitimacha—1758 

4. Iroquois of Six Nations Reserve 9. Menominee 17. Cree 24, Omaha 31. Catawba a artes 

5. Seneca and Shawnee Joint loca- 10. Chippewa 18. Blackfoot 25. Iowa 32. Creek 30. Klowa 

tions in 18th century 11. Yankton Dakota 19. Crow 26. Oto 33. Choctaw 40. Rio Grande Pueblos 
5a. Shawnee 12. Teton Dakota 20. Shoshone 27. Kansa 34. Koroa—1683 ° 
6. Miami—1670-1750 13, Arikara 


982306—53 (Face p. 288) 


KuratH] TROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 289 


specifically in the Tonawanda songs in figure 35. Cherokee songs 
descend in chained thirds of 7531, producing a range of seven notes 
instead of an octave (fig. 36).!7 None of the songs except the Pawnee 
are preceded by calls, though some of them start with an introductory 
phrase like an extended call. Though on the surface all of the cited 
examples appear different, the South and West are united with the 
Iroquois by fundamental characteristics. Tribe by tribe, they can 
be summarized as follows: 


Pawnee and Iroquois.—Hako song 1 (fig. 34) has a nucleus of a 
second, a semicadence on VII, the simpler Iroquoian rhythmic units 
1, 5, and 7, parallel structure, an accented duple drum beat, a tempo 
only slightly slower than that of Tonawanda, and a level melodic 
contour. Song 2 combines a descending second with an ascending 
third, in a focused melody. Its essentials resemble the first song, 
but it has no semicadence, and plays its rhythmic motif (unit 3) 
in two complementary phrases. 

Omaha and Iroquois.—The actual dance of wawa’ is in two parts, 
which we term songs 3 and 4. Song 3 precedes a modified quartal 
nucleus by a tertial phrase and repeats its simple rhythmic units 
(1, 8, and 14) in parallel structure with a gentle descent to the main- 
tone (fig. 34). Song 4 more closely relates to Pawnee and Iroquois 
examples by virtue of its secundal nucleus, preceded by a tertial 
phrase, by a semicadence on VI, simple rhythmic units 3 and 14, and 
complementary centered structure with a mirrored contour. Both 
Omaha songs use a drumbeat and tempo characteristic of Iroquois 
Eagle Dance. 

Illinois and Iroquois.—The first and second Illinois Calumet Dance 
songs notated by Fr. Marquette give no indication of their structure 
or percussion pattern, but they appear related to Eagle Dance songs 
by their tertial scales with a terminal play on a second and the effect 
of a semicadence on VII in Illinois song 2 (fig. 34). Song 1, however, 
appears quartal with a terminal second, and both have a descending 
contour. The rhythm has to be inferred. Song 1 seems to fit into 
a triplet pattern and song 2 into units 1 and 14, but their phrasing is 
blurred. 


11 For discussion of chains of thirds, specifically as applied to Europe, see Sachs, 1943, pp. 385-386 and 388-393. 


[ BULL. 156 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


290 


Tonawanda 


y ws 
- o> bad 
Kod 
i] i 
a | oo it as 
I 
is 
os 
asl aot 


TU | il 
il 
ieee 
nite | 
Lin in 
< i | 
ai | ! 
S i T T 


(See p. 296.) 


scales. 


™ 
x 


Ficure 31.—Tonawanda 1, 2, 10; 


IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 291 


KuratH] 


| 
H 
! 
il 


ml! 
Lewbeatoed 


Ficure 32.—Song excerpts: Pawnee, Omaha pipe invocation; Pueblo Eagle Dance, Illinois 


Also compare Sioux Grass 


Compare Tonawanda songs in figure 31. 
Dance songs in Densmore, 1918, No. 195, and Sioux Sun and Grass Dance in recordings 


Calumet Dance. 


by Willard Rhodes. (See Bibliography.) (Key signature was inadvertently omitted from 


Pawnee 1. This should be the same as for Omaha 1.) (See p. 296.) 


[BuLL. 156 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


292 


J=116 


Ny 


ds 


‘] 


HT] Ol 


2 = 132 


[8A Segc= 108 


Fox 


(See p. 296.) 


Ficure 33.—Tonawanda 9, 4; Fox songs 1, 2, 3; scales. 


293 


IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 


KURATH] 


Pawnee 2. 


é@ 7116 


| 


Compare 


Also compare Chip- 


Figure 34.—Pawnee Hako, Omaha Wawa’, Illinois Calumet Dance songs. 


Tonawanda Eagle Dance and Fox Calumet Dance in figure 33. 


pewa Pipe Dance (Densmore, 1913, No. 171) and Menominee Pipe Dance (Densmore, 
, Nos. 109-112); also Teton Sioux Hunka (Densmore, 1918, Nos. 2 and 3). (See 


1932 


p. 296.) 


(BULL. 156 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


294 


J = 112 


Tonawanda _ 3. 


x i 
© fT 


H 


116 


J= 


Ficure 35.—Tonawanda 3, 5, 6, 8. (See p. 296.) 


IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 295 


KvratTH] 


2 =108 


Cherokee 


| 
ell 
rp 
1 


> 


r 


ed 

e-38 
Qs 
es 


+ y 


Ficure 36.—Cherokee songs 1, 3, 4; scales of tertial Tonawanda and Cherokee songs. 


(See p. 296.) 


296 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 


Texts to Figures 31-36 
Tonawanda Seneca—see Fenton pp. 67-68. 


Pawnee Hako 

1. Hooo. ’Harera... (Young children coming). 

2. Hooo. Ha! Ira hirura ... (Behold! Yonder he is coming). 

3. Hooo. Rawasa wari! Irii hare . . . (Now you eagles fly. You children). 


Omaha Wawa 

1. 2. Kawae tha... (burden syllables). 

3. Kae tha kae tha... ho kae thu naenaha... 
4. Hokaetha... 


Illinois Calumet Dance (probably untranslated meanings). 

1. Nina hani.. . (refers to pipe?). 

2. Cahoua hanogue atchicha ... he he. 

3. Mintingomi tade pini pinihe atchichale matchi minamba mictande pini pinihe. 


Pueblo Eagle Dance 
3. Ohaowiya heneya... 


Fox Calumet Dance (burden syllables and meanings). 
1. Yuwe yuwe yuwe .. . aiyaiye ho tice (pipe dance syllables) 
aiyai aiyai nik’ gan di k en ne ma n6 mi ne wi ne ma nd mi ne wi ho tce 
(All my friends, I am a Menomini) [A full tribal member]. 
2. kwi kwo? tea ha-n wi na wi w’, nuwiyuwi . . . (Three times). 
Jack Snipe, he can’t pull to fly [too full of food, this bird]. 
wi ha-ni se:4 tce ho-4 tei 
Can’t use his wings. 
3. aiyai aiyai me na gwi a:si (Twice) 
aiyai aiyai me n& gwi arsi e ho tce aiyai aiyai 
spoiled buffalo meat 
Obtained by Martha Champion Huot from Bill Leaf, singer. 
Song 1 refers to a young man just returned from first war experience. 


Cherokee Eagle Dance (burden syllables). 

1. had’ehona... 

2. ha’yniho’ ha’yniho’ge (twice) nu’wiga’nina ya’niho’ge. Repeat. 
3. yo’we hoyowe... 


Literary References to Figures 32 and 34. 


Hako—1. Fletcher, 1904, p. 251; transcription by Edwin D. Tracy. 
2. ibid., p. 255. 
3. ibid., p. 254. 
Wawan—l. Fletcher, 1893, No. 51, p. 117; transcription by John C. Fillmore. 
2. ibid. 
3. ibid., p. 118. 
4, ibid., pp. 118-119. 
Illinois—1, 2, 3. Marquette, Thwaites ed. 1900, v. 51, p. 311. 
Pueblo of San Ildefonso—Evans, 1931, p. 53; Transcription by George Herzog. 


Melodies are quoted as transcribed, except for occasional transposition to a 
common level for comparative purposes. All other transcriptions are by G. 
Kurath, 


KuratTH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 297 


Fox and Iroquois.—We have previously commented on the affinity 
between Fox Pipe Dance and Iroquois Eagle Dance songs, partic- 
ularly in the bipartite structure, with tremolo during A and duple 
beat during B. This similarity is emphasized by the focused con- 
tours with a mild descent within a range of a fifth to an octave, and 
dwindling intervals toward the end of each section. The three Fox 
songs show even more conservative tendencies than Tonawanda 9 
and 4 (fig. 33), and tie up with hako examples in the secundal scales 
the effect of a semicadence in song 1, simple rhythmic units, and 
repetitious forms, consisting in each section of a high statement, the 
theme, and a monotone coda. The tempo of A is slower than B, 
which proceeds at the rapid clip of the Onondaga dances. 

Cherokee and Iroquois ——The Cherokee examples in figure 36 show 
more contrasts than likenesses with the Tonawanda songs in figure 35. 
Besides the difference in scales, noted above, the Cherokee songs 
introduce syncopation and rapid unit 12, also a curious 7/8 phrasing 
in song 3. The structure consists of thematic repetition in mildly 
descending sequence and contour variations, to a low maintone. 
The drumbeat is erratic and different in each song, progressing from 
absence to a slow irregular pattern to an even duple beat. 

Pueblo and Iroquois——The Pueblo transcriptions by Dr. George 
Herzog (1935) show Plains rather than Iroquois tendencies in the 
sequential descents, syncopations and triplets, and the quartal scale 
of the first, third, and fourth songs. Song 3, however, uses a tertial 
scale, Jevel passages, a tempo similar to the Seneca, and a pattern of 
triple tremolo and accented single beat to the two parts of the melody. 


TRENDS OF DEVELOPMENT 


A comparison of two sets of songs shows the following schemes, 
in order of increasing ingenuity: (1) Pawnee 2 and 3 : nucleus with 
initial call and sally. (2) Omaha 3 : nucleus with initial development 
and monotone coda. (3)S.5, Oa. 13 : nucleus with initial development 
and terminal monotone coda, duplicated in A and B. (4) Ton. 9 
and S. 13 : secondary theme; nucleus, variant. Again (1) Omaha 
4 : nucleus with initial overlay. (2) Fox 1 : nucleus with initial 
development and monotone coda. (3) Oa. 12 : development, com- 
plement; nucleus, complement. (4) Ton. 4 : development, nucleus, 
coda; complement, sequential ascent of nucleus, coda (figs. 33 and 34). 

In the Fox songs, the two parts A and B form one consecutive 
whole, whereas the Iroquois A and B contain parallel but varying 
restatements of two themes. 

The Cherokee, Illinois, and Pueblo songs show different tendencies. 
The Cherokee songs merely tend toward the binary form; the tertial 
scale consists of chains of thirds adding up to a seventh, in distinc- 


298 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


tion from the octave’s dip of the Tonawanda “triad” scale (figs. 35 
and 36). Relationship to the hako nucleus is not out of the question, 
considering the flexibility of Indian intervals; but such stages of 
growth cannot be demonstrated by intervening tribes. The Pueblo 
songs do not obviously hark back to Pawnee hako, but, like the 
Illinois examples, exhibit Plains characteristics (fig. 32). 


RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER SONGS OF THESE TRIBES #8 


Placement of these songs in their tribal setting will here be most 
summary and can be followed up by perusal of the detailed analyses. 

Pawnee.—Hako Eagle Dance songs stand alone in the great treasury 
of Pawnee ritual songs. Hako contains a few equally archaic chants, 
as the chant to the sun (Fletcher, 1904, p. 135). Most of the songs 
show greater development, chants to the corn with a tertial trend 
(ibid., pp. 162-163), in chained thirds at times (ibid., p. 188); with 
a quartal trend in pipe songs (ibid., pp. 101, 111, 249-251). Miss 
Densmore stresses the generally greater simplicity of melody and 
rhythm as compared with Siouan songs, preference for 5-note 
range, two-thirds proportion of descending intervals (Densmore, 
1929, pp. 14-18). In fact, we find a preponderance of the simpler 
rhythmic units, but also many songs with triplets and syncopation, 
and descending melodies up to 14-note range. These tendencies 
are exhibited in the pipe songs. (See also songs in Densmore, 1929, 
Nos. 19, 20, 22.) 

Omaha.—Omaha songs similarly combine two tendencies but with a 
minority of simpler even units and compact ranges, and a majority 
of complex rhythms and great drops (Fletcher, 1893, Hethuska songs 
Nos. 17, 19, 23 with triplets, No. 22 with syncopation and a range of 
12 notes). Virtually all of the songs are quartal. Thus the Eagle 
Dance songs, though less archaic than those of hako, contrast with 
the general tendency; but the introductory chants emphasize the 
Siouan qualities. Considering the derivation of wawa’ from hako, 
the paucity of precise analogies is surprising. They do exist (Fletcher, 
1893, pp. 392 ff.; 1904, pp. 268 ff.), but the Omaha have certainly 
exercised creative talent. 

Great Plains ——These bold qualities burst into full glory in the 
music of the Teton Sioux, especially in the Grass Dance. Here 
the downward transposition of longer phrases is carried to an extreme 
(Densmore, 1918, No. 195-199). No. 195, with its range of 17 
notes, transposes the theme and subtheme four times, down two 
octaves, in strikingly consecutive structure.” The characteristics 


18 It is too early to generalize on cultural] implications of tonality, as so competently presented for Eurasia 
in Sachs, 1943. “Triads,’’ for instance, appear from the Cherokee to the Eskimo (Thuren, 1923, pp. Si bhe 
9 For typical Plains structure, see Herzog, 1935, p. 409. 


Kurata] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 299 


have been summarized by Densmore (1918, pp. 42 ff.) and the melodic 
line of a number of songs has been plotted. Some of these compare 
with the contours on our figure 28, particularly page 204, Nos. 49 
and 56 (Dreams about Animals) and page 245, Nos. 59 and 71 (Treat- 
ment of Sick). The songs dealing with the hako-derived hunka form 
an exception, with their simple “‘triadic’”’ pattern (Densmore, 1918, 
Nos. 2 and 3). They do not, however, resemble the Eagle Dance, 
for they deal with other parts of the ceremony. 

Northern tribes—Similar tendencies are evident in the music 
of the Mandan and Hidatsa, for whom, however, we find no pipe 
songs (Densmore, 1923); and in Cheyenne and Arapaho songs, more 
pronounced in the Cheyenne repertoire (Densmore, 1936, Nos. 23 and 
29) than in the Arapaho with their agricultural background (ibid., 
No. 18). The sequence is also a characteristic of Chippewa and 
Menominee songs, but with more preference for simpler units, nota- 
bly in the Chippewa pipe songs which differ from the Menominee 
Tobacco Dance (Densmore, 1913, Nos. 171-173, and 1932, Nos. 
109-112). We have noted a similar melodic line in Chippewa No. 171, 
““O’gima’’ and Fox Pipe Dance songs. 

Throughout this northern area we find many songs with discrepancy 
of vocal and instrumental tempo, also frequent iambic drumbeats 
(long-short), especially in the war songs and Grass Dance. 

Foz.—The Sauk and Fox escaped Miss Densmore’s attention, but 
their songs have been recorded by Martha Champion Randle and 
some of them were notated by ear during my attendance at their fes- 
tivals. The general similarity to Iroquois music is apparent in the 
tonality and in the level trend of their ceremonial music and also in the 
peculiar structure of A A B A B with alternate tremolo and beat cor- 
responding to static and crossing dance patterns, notably in Bean 
Dance and Bear Dance. The Pipe Dance songs fit into the musical 
frame as well as do Iroquois Eagle Dance songs. 

Cherokee.—Cherokee songs have also to date escaped exhaustive 
publication, but some samples appear in Kurath, 1951, figures 5 and 
7; and recordings by Lucas Moser and John W. Gillespie are on hand. 
These are predominantly tertial: Corn Dance and Masked Dance 
descend in chains of thirds, just as Cherokee Eagle Dance; but as a 
rule the rhythms of both melody and drum are relatively simple and 
the tonality and line recall songs of the Northern Iroquois. Chains of 
thirds appear to be a characteristic of the Southeast. They are in 
evidence in songs of the Creek, such as medicine chants (Speck, 1911, 
p. 227 ff.) and the Feather Dance (ibid., p. 192), of the Yuchi (Ball 
Game, ibid., p. 209), and of the Choctaw (Densmore, 1943 b). 

Pueblos.—Miss Densmore’s collection of music from Santo Domingo 


300 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


Pueblo shows some use of syncopation and of quartal scales, notably 
in the Buffalo Dance (1938, No. 59 ff.), but a strong tertial tendency 
particularly in the Corn Dance, with chained thirds in Nos. 39 and 46. 
They also show a preference for level or rising contours, but again 
Buffalo Dance No. 65 and others descend. On the whole, the Eagle 
Dance is closer to Plains music than to typical Pueblo songs. 


SUMMARY 


The comparisons indicate two easterly paths of musical diffusion: 
a horizontal development from Pawnee and Omaha through Fox to 
Iroquois, and an oblique trend from the Missouri area through the 
Illinois southeast to the Cherokee, thence in an arc to the Iroquois. 
Secondly, they show the fusion of introduced songs with the local style, 
in contrast with the dance patterns which remain esoteric to the East- 
ern Woodlands. Thirdly, they emphasize the role of the individual 
artist in adherence, transference, and creative modification: the Chero- 
kee, Will West Long; the Iroquois, Johnny John, Shanks, Logan, 
Deskaheh, and generations of forgotten singers. 


TRANSMISSION AND RECEPTION OF RITUAL CURRENTS 


Choreographically and musically the Iroquois Eagle Dance has more 
in common with the Calumet Dance of the Northern Plains hunters 
than with the Eagle Dance of the Southern agriculturalists. With the 
North it shares the rectilinear pattern, the introductory chants, the 
wand, boast, gifts, and feast; with the South it shares only the birdlike 
mime. It shows closest relationship with the blended ritual of the 
agricultural Central Plains tribes. 'To the Omaha pipe-shaking it con- 
forms in all respects; to the nineteenth ritual of the Pawnee hako in 
all essentials except for the Pawnee circles and maize-symbolism. The 
three types are united by a feathered sway and by pairing. 

Of these three types the Eagle mime appears as an ancient and 
possibly extensive substratum. Its origin is lost in prehistory. Par- 
sons’ and Fletcher’s Mexican hunch remains a theory.” A South- 
eastern ceremonial complex is variously traced by archeologists to 
Central America (Waring and Holder, 1945; Nuttall, 1932), to indig- 
enous roots (Krieger, 1945). These prehistoric birdmen resemble the 


20 For Aztec parallels, see Parsons, 1939, vol. 2, pp. 1019-1025, specifically, reference to Sahagun, 1932, pp. 
146-147. Birds were impersonated in the semihelmet mask of the Eagle Knight dancers during the rain 
ceremony, also by masked dancers during Tentleco, the arrival of the Gods (Sahagun, p. 120). See also 
Sandi, 1938, pp. 611-612. Magnificent fans of stout wing-feathers of rare birds were carried by chiefs in cere- 
monial dances, by envoys to neighboring tribes as official badge and exchange-gifts. Feathers of the green 
quetzal bird were especially prized (Nuttall, 1888, p. 24, pl. 2, figs. 13, a, 6). 

At the time of the Conquest, as today, the Volador was the most realistic and spectacular bird imitation 
(see Toor, 1947, pp. 317-323 and pl. 152 ff.). These and the gorgeous Quetzales emphasize sun associations. 
(See Quetzales in Toor, p. 353, pl. 160.) These dancers carry small rattles but no fans. As witnessed, they 
appeared different choreographically and musically from the northerly Eagle dance forms. 


KURATH] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS 301 


modern Western vestiges in mask and posture.“ Direct descent in 
their own area has been obscured by discontinuance of the eagle masks 
among the Shawnee and Cherokee (Fenton, field notes). 

The second type, the Calumet Dance, already enjoyed a wide favor 
in the seventeenth century on the advent of the missionaries who 
helped to spread its acceptance to distant tribes. The pipe as such 
can be traced to the Hopewellian Period, 500-1000 A. D. (Setzler, 
1940, p. 260) and to the pipestone quarry in Siouan territory (see map, 
fig. 28). For the feathered pipe, facts display not only general diffu- 
sion, but three well-defined paths of transmission to the Iroquois, by 
way of the Central Algonquians, the Ohio Valley via the Shawnee, 
and through the South via the Cherokee. Among Plains tribes the 
cult has died out, simultaneously with removal to Oklahoma and with 
the rise of the Grass Dance. Vestiges survive among Central 
Algonquians. 

The impact of the Calumet on the ancient Eagle Cult may have 
fashioned the third blended ritual before the era of White encroach- 
ment, though Marquette and Allouez and their fellow travelers spoke 
only of calumet waving and were unaware of any eagle mime they 
may have witnessed. The new composite of ancient forms appeared 
as hu"ka among the Teton Sioux in 1801 (Densmore, 1918, p. 69) 
as a legacy from the Pawnee. Thus the dance was certainly included 
in the age-old hako by the end of the eighteenth century. This 
feather-waving ritual survives, modified, in the eastern periphery, 
among the Iroquois with shrinkage of the wands, doubling of numbers, 
and melodic elaboration. Futhermore, in the different longhouses the 
geometry and practices are undergoing continuous development. 

In the drama of transmission and reception the circles and squares, 
the seconds, thirds, and fourths function not as inert mathematical 
formulae but as symptoms of tribal dance and music culture. Inevi- 
tably they have changed and continue to change with the passage of 
time, with transmission across great areas and through intervening 
tribes, and with filtration through local and individual personalities. 


21 For dancing eagles, on copper plates from Temple Mound C of Etowah, see Willoughby, 1932, fig. 13, 
p. 32, 14, p. 34. Eagle paraphernalia includes a pair of huge wings, claws, a beak, a fan in the right hand, 
sometimes a head in the left, on shell gorgets of Eastern Tennessee, sometimes also deer antlers (Willoughby, 
fig. 26, p. 54 and fig. 29, p. 57). The raised-knee posture could appertain to almost any Indian tribe, but is 
especially reminiscent of the Pueblos. On a Tennessee shell gorget two eagles engage in combat (ibid. 
fig. 27. p. 55). 


302 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156 


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RECORDINGS 


Seneca—Coldspring—Chauncey and Richard Johnny John, 1941. Recorded by 
William N. Fenton, Library of Congress No. 56.—Tonawanda— 
Robert Shanks, 1936. Recorded by Martha Champion Randle and 
William N. Fenton, L C Nos. 9,10. Archives Indiana Univ. 

Onondaga—Six Nations Reserve—Joseph Logan, 1941. Recorded by William N. 
Fenton, L C, Nos. 23 and 24 A. Published in Album VI, Songs 
from the Iroquois Longhouse, Folk Music of the United States, 
1942. 

Cayuga—Sour Springs Longhouse, Six Nations Reserve—Alexander General 
(Deskaheh) and Willie John, 1951. Recorded by Gertrude Kurath 
and Joseph Raben. Reel 3, now in National Museum of Canada. 

Fox—Tama, Iowa—Bill Leaf, 1933—Recorded by Martha Champion Randle, 
L C, No. 37. Archives Indiana Univ. 

Cherokee—Qualla, N. C.—Will West Long, 1946. Recorded by Artus Moser, 
forwarded by John W. Gillespie. Private Collection. 

Sioux—Wanblee, S. D.—Recorded by Willard Rhodes. Publ. Ethnic Folkways 
Library, E F 2. Omaha (Grass) Dance—1420 B (transcribed, but not 
reproduced). 


INDEX 


Aaron, Jerry, informant, 94 

Abenaki Indians, 157, 158, 176, 184 

Abram, Cornelius, Seneca, 32, 33 

Abrams, Chauncey, Seneca, 57 

Adoption Rite, 206, 275 

Aiaoua, Indian tribe, 192 

Akansa Indians, 183, 195 

Akitiks, mystic birds, 95 

Alabama Indians, 175 

Algonquian Indians, 49, 105, 109, 114, 
117, 154, 155, 159, 175, 176, 178, 
185, 199, 202, 203, 205 

Central, 154, 155, 156, 268, 269, 

272, 273, 283, 301 

Allegany Indian Reservation, 5, 11, 41, 
43, 47, 57, 74, 78, 81, 115, 118, 
129, 134, 150, 229, 233, 248 

later celebrations at, 31-37 

Allegheny River, N. Y., 5, 42, 46, 50, 75, 
99, 116, 144, 153 

Allouez, Father, explorer, 170, 182, 187, 
300 


All-Smoking Ceremony, 274 

American Museum of Natural History, 
130, 200 

American Philosophical 
brary, 3 

André, Father Louis, 192 

Animal abductors, mythical, 175 

Animal’s head, served at dances, 76, 
106, 119, 144, 174, 191 

Anthropomorphic beings, 114 

Anus motif, 205 

Apples, orere at dance, 35, 36, 37, 61, 
137 


Society Li- 


Approach of the Pipes Ceremony, 276 

Arapaho Indians, 175, 188, 189, fig. 30, 
299 

Archaic residue, 173 

Arikara Indians, 179, 188, 189, 191, 
192, 277, 284, fig. 30 

Armstrong, Jesse, Seneca, 34 

John, Seneca, 17 

Arrow, Seneca brave, 29, 42, 51, 101 

Arrows, 94 

Arrowshafts, 195 

Assiniboin Indians, 175, 186, 188, 274, 
279, fig. 30 

Atkin, Edmond, 168 

Awl-breaker, Indian man, 55, 56, 61, 
65, 95, 96, 114, 127 

Aztecs, 271, 301 


Bad He Giant Crow, legend of, 
G— 

Banker, Captain Evert, 158 

Barred Oval motif, 205 

Barrett, S. A., 131, 284 

Basketmaker, 43 

Basketry, knowledge of, 39 


Baskets, 17, 50, 52 
hand, 7 
pack, 7, 137 
splint, 7, 34, 137 
washing, 7, 137 
Battle-ax, 183 
Beads, 165 
Bean Festival, 77, 299 
Beans, pole, 7, 137 
Bear Dance, 266, 267, 299 
Bear rite, 281 
Bear Sacrifice Ceremony, 202 
Bear Society, 112, 124 
dance, 19, 112, 122, 266, 267 
Bear’s head, served at dances, 177 
Bear’s ey served at feasts, 107, 129. 


Bearskin, 197 
i per Rev. William M., 79, 156, 
15 


Beaver, 156 
Indians, 175 
ens gifts of, 155, 156, 160, 163, 


Bella Coola Midwinter festival, 282 
Belt, peace, 169 
Road and Peace, 169 
wampum, 102, 123, 134, 156, 157, 
159, 164, 165, 166, 167 
Berdaches, 183 
Berries, wild, 44 
Bibliography, 210-222, 301-306 
Big Bird Dance, 31, 33 
Big ee celestial beings, 31, 32, 33, 


Big-canoe, Seneca man, 34 

Big Crow, mythical being, 81, 116 

Big-leaf, mother of Hemlocks-lying- 
down, 49 

Big Miami River, 163 

Big Porcupine, Seneca Indian name for 
Speck, 35 

Big Raven, dance conductor, 173 

Big Sioux River, 189 

Big-Women’s Dance, 51 

Billington, Ray A., 284 

Bilobed Arrow motif, 205, 206 

Bingham, Robert W., 3 

Bird Abductor Legend, 74 

Bird Dance, 83, 284 

Bird lice, beliefs regarding, 95, 100, 
173, 199, 200, 203 

Bird Society, 33 

Black, Chief Barber, informant, 4 

Chief Edward, informant, 4, 55 

Black Coat, Indian chief, 200 

Blackfoot Indians, 186, 188, 189, 274, 
279, 285 

Blacksnake, Seneca leader, 78 

Blair, Emma H., 155 

Bloodroot, 134 


307 


308 


Bloody Hand, Legend of, 80-82, 112 
Bluejay, celestial being, 195 
Boar’s head, served at feast, 177 
Boas, Franz, 172 
Body paint, "charcoal, 278 
red, 149 
white, 280 
Bonnets, Sioux, 270 
Bowen, Francis, Seneca Indian, 13, 14, 
15, 19, 20, 21, 24, 187 
Leslie, 34 
Bowl, bark, 30, 40 
Bows, 7 
and arrows, 93, 95, 100 
Boy abducted by Dew Eagle, several 
versions, 83-91, 113 
Boyd, George, 187 
Brag Dance, 105 
Breechcloth, 148, 190 
Brew, John O., 228 
Brother-and-sister 
monial, 193 
Brush, eagle-feather, 199 
Bruyas, Father, 79 
Buck, Peter (Te Rangi Hiroa), 2, 265 
Buffalo, 181, 192 
Dance, 83, 267, 271, 300 
heart, use of, 193 
skull, 194 
wool, use of, 193 
Buffalo Creek Reservation, 141 
Buffalo Historical Society, 3 
Buffalo Society, 112 
Bull, Gov. William, 165, 166 
"Moses, Seneca Indian, 125 
Bundle feasts, 184 
Burnthouse, 43 
Bustle, feather, 67 
Butler, Charles, informant, 4 
Sadie, 4 
Buttree-Seton, Julia A., 271 
Buzzard, 81 
Dance, 199 
feather, mark of doctor, 199 
Buzzard Cult, 187, 204, 206, 210 
Byrd, William, 168 


relationship, cere- 


Cabbage, 7, 52 
Caddo Indians, 164, 175, 178, 189, 194, 
195, 197, 204, 205, 209, 210, 277, 
fig. 30 
See also Pawnee. 
Cahinnio, Caddo tribe, 164, 195, 197 
Calabashes, 167 
Calendars, 7 
Calumet, 71, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 
168, 169, 172, 178, 183, 186, 188, 
189, 190, 191, 193, 198, 203, 268, 
271-274, 278, 280, 281 
fans, feather, 96, 180, 157 
of Peace, 198 
of War, 198 
on the waterways trail, 271-274 
pipe, 111, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 
161, 163, 166 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


[Bull. 156] 


Calumet—Continued 
ritual, 176, 197-198 
songs, 287-288, 291, 293, 296-297, 
299, 301 
stems, 275 
Calumet Dance, 12, 76, 101, 108, 
110} 111, 123, 143,°154,' 155; 
158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 
165, 166, 170,171,472, 507 
176, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 
185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 192, 193, 
194, 195, 197, 200, 202, 203, 204, 
205, 208, 209, 210, 268, 271- 274° 
277-278, 280, 283, 284, 287, 288, 
300, 301 
Cherokee, 269-270 
saat ei and comparison, 172- 
Fox, 228, 268-269, 270, 285-286 
Illinois, 2, 287, 288, 289, 291 
(music), 293 (music), 300 
Iowa, 193 
Natchez, 198 
Pawnee, 2, 188 
Canes, green hickory, 7 
Cannehoot, Seneca speaker, 157 
Cannibalism, 106, 178 
Cap, feather-trimmed, 117 
Cardinal (bird), celestial being, 195 
Carl Standing Deer, Cherokee Indian 
informant, 269 
Carving, 52 
Cass, Governor Lewis, 164 
Caswell, Harriet 8., 78 
Catawba Indians, 71, 154, 155, 158, 
165, 166, 167, 168, 170, 194, 199, 
209, 281, fig. 30 
Catholic University of America, 3 
Catlin, George, 192, 193, 199, 200, 204, 
274, 277, 278, 280 
Catlinite, pipe stems of, 155, 170, 186 
Cattail leaves, 195 
Cattaraugus Reservation, 4, 11, 20, 26, 
27, 30, 42, 43, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 
74, 75, 80, 82, 95, 96, 101, 109, 
118, 130, 131, 183, 134, 135, 136, 
141, 148, 145, 146, 284 
Caul, belief regarding, 70, 113, 114 
Cayuga Eagle Society Dance, 74-75, 
202, 248 
Cayuga Indians, 3, 4, 21, 27, 48, 49, 69, 
72, 75, 84, 88, 90, 93, 94, 100, 
104, 114, 131, 135, 155, 160, 202, 
232, 233, 234 (fig.), 235 (figs.), 
237 (dance pattern), 239, 248, 
256, 262, 263, 264, 265, 267, 281 
Ceremonial Friends, 79, 123-126 
weeping, 187 
Ceremonies, 9 
Champlain, Samuel de, 117 
Chants, 231, 238, 270, 284, 288, 290, 
296, 298 
Charlevoix, P. F. X. de, 157, 162, 171, 
183, 184, 189, 198, 280 


INDEX 


Cherokee Indians, 2, 3, 12, 91, 96, 100, 
101, 102, 104, 108, 188, 153, 155, 
158, 165, 167, 168, 169, 170, 175, 
177, 181, 194, 195, 199, 200, 201, 
203, 209, 235 (fig.), 268, 269-270, 
273, 279, 280, 281, 288, fig. 30, 
289, 301 
music, 295, 297, 299, 300 
peace, 101-102, 108, 153, 201, 209 
Wars, 108, 109 
Cheyenne Indians, 175, 176, 186, 188, 
189, 277, 283, 287, fig. 30, 299 
Chicago Nat. Hist. Museum, 180 
Chichicoué, 281 
See also Rattles. 
Chickasaw Indians, 195, 198, 199 
Chicken feathers, used for fans, 69, 131 
Chickens, served at feast, 55, 57, 62, 66, 
ei 70, 74, 107, 119, 126, 230-234, 
5 
Chilcotin Indians, 175 
Child, sacred, 193 
Children, rules regarding feast food, 153 
Chippewa Indians, 104, 123, 154, 172, 
175, 183, 186, 187, 203, 209, 271, 
272, 274, 287, fig. 30, 299 
Chipping-Sparrow, legendary Indian, 83 
Chitimacha Indians, 194, 195, 198, 271, 
272, fig. 30 
Choctay ta 195, 199, 280, fig. 30, 


Choreography, Eagle Dance, 229-248, 
267, 285-286, 287, 300 
Cinnabar, red, 134 
Circuits, counterclockwise, 174 
Clairvoyant, consulting of, 19, 48, 70, 
112; 117, 118) 422, 1235°125,. 127, 
128, 129, 173, 176 
training for, 70 
Clans, 8, 11, 72, 142, 143, 181, 230 
Bear, 13, 15, 16> 17, 18, 19;°21, 23, 
24, 26, 28, 29, 34, 40, 41, 45, 46, 
54, 69, 71, 101, 121, 122, 124, 126, 
129, 134, 138, 139, 150, 230 
Beaver, 13, 16, 23, 26, 32, 34, 49, 
ae 71, 87, 124, 133, 138, 139, 
15 
Deer, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 27, 45, 
71, 128, 135, 138, 139, 230 
Eagle, 117, 269 
Eel, 68, 71, 139 
Hawk, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 24, 
26, 27, 34, 43, 45, 46, 55, 59, 71, 
86, 117, 122, 124, 125, 134, 138, 
139, 140, 141, 149, 150 
Heron, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 28, 
41, 45, 51, 87, 97, 116, 124, 137, 
138, 139, 150 
matrilineal, 138 
Snipe, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 
25, 26, 28, 32, 42, 45, 54, 55, 71, 
96, 98, 115, 122, 126, 138, 139, 
150 
Turtle, 13, 19, 21, 23, 27, 33, 48, 
49, 55, 56, 71, 84, 124, 125, 135, 
137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 230, 232 


309 


Clans—Continued 
Wolf, 21, 23, 32, 41, 43, 48, 50, 53, 
55, 56, 71, 83, 95, 98, 107, 120, 
122, 125, 127, 128, 137, 138, 139, 
230, 232 
Climax forms, 178, 204 
Cent ae 86, 87, 97, 98, 99, 114, 
See also Dew Eagle. 
Coasati Indians, 199 
Coats, feathered, 279 
Coffins, cloth-covered, 41 
wooden, 41 
Cohocton River, 105 
Colden, Cadwallader, 106, 154, 157, 160 
Coldspring, Seneca Eagle Dance at, 
13-54 
Longhouse, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 
20, 21, 31, 36, 38, 39, 43, 46, 49, 
50, 53, 58, 61, 74, 75, 78, 95, 96, 
107, 120, 121, 132, 133, 134, 135, 
137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 144, 149, 
151, 208, 228, 249, 265, 284, 288 
See also Seneca. 
ealchrsing Singers Society, 40, 44, 51, 
4 


Cold-voice, Seneca brave, 26, 29 
Colors, ceremonial use of, 191 
Comanche Dance, 271, 282 

Comanche Indians, 271, 282-283, fig. 30 
Comparative choreography, 229-248 


Condolence Council, 176, 177, 187, 205, 
206 
Condolence Roll Call, 139 
Condor, Celestial being, 69 
Condor Dance, equipment, 69-70 
membership, 70 
Onondaga, 68-71, 72, 73 
preparation for, 70 
ritual pattern, 71-73 
songs, 71 
speeches, 71 
Conductor, dance official, 14, 15, 16, 
20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 
34, 35, 38, 54, 55, 56,58, 59, 
60, 62, 63, 64, 66, 72, 76, 116, 
128, 133, 184, 1386, 137, 139, 140, 
141, 144, 148, 152, 173, 179, 181, 
182, 183, 185, 190, 194, 196, 198, 
201, 204, 230, 231, 232 
Conewango Valley, 43 
Congdon, Charles E., 31, 33, 34 
Converse, Frank B., 284 
Harriet Maxwell, 76, 82, 115, 116, 
130, 131, 284 
Cooper, Hattie, informant, 4 
Dr. John M., 3 
Leroy, informant, 4 
William, informant, 4, 16, 18, 19, 
24, 25, 26, 28, 31, 32, 121 
Wilton, 32 
Corn, 7, 51, 52, 180, 194, 275 
Dance, 266, 299, 300 


310 


Corn—Continued 
soup, served to dancers, 20, 30, 34, 
36, 37, 57, 62, 63, 70, 120, 121, 
135, 137, 144, 147, 148, 152, 174, 
183, 230, 232 
washboiler of, 14 (fig.), 22 
(fig.), 34, 138, 152 
supernatural being, 189 
symbolism, 270, 275, 299 
white squaw, 30, 69, 137 
Corn-husker, informant, 5 (G07, 8) a03} 
16, 17, 19, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 
31, 35, 38, 43-45, 50, 51, 122) 
124, 133, 138, 150 
Cornplanter, Edward, informant, 4, 78, 
109, 118 
Jess, informant, 4, 83, 131, 284 
Costumes, dance, 24, 148-149, 152 
Counting stick, 194 
Coup, onere of, 283, 285, 191, 193, 


Coury, Ed., Seneca, 34 

Cousins, cross, 139, 142, 175 

Cows, 45 

Crackers, basket of, 14 (fig.), 22 (fig.), 
24, 25, 34 

served to dancers, 17, 20, 25, 26, 28, 

34, 36, 37, 55, 57, 62, 66, 137, 
139 

Cradleboards, wooden, 40 

Cradles, elm bark, 40 

Creator, 16, 24;.32, 36, 37, 55, 58, 62, 
63, 65, 66, 72, 78, 86, 95, 103, 


104, 110, 117, 126, 135, 144, 145 


See also Dew Eagle. 

Cree Indians, 175, 188, 274, 278, fig. 30 
Plains, 176, 186, 189, 274, 278 
Western, 188 

Creek Indians, 142, 165, 170, 175, 194, 

195, 198, 199, 281, fig. 30, 299 

Crouse, Jonas, informant, 4, 134 

Crow, carrion, 199 
pet, 44 
supernatural being, 184 

Crow Indians, 175, 180, 189, 283, 

fig. 30 

Crow, A railies; informant, 4 
Oscar, Seneca, 42 

Cultural phenomenon, Iroquois Eagle 
- Dance as, 75-153 

@invierlahl River, 279 

Cuming, Alexander, 201 

Cuogq, J. A., 79 

Curtin, Jeremiah, 101, 108 

Curtis, Edward S., 193 


Dakota quien, 175, 186, 188, 193, 194, 
1 


6 

Eastern, 175, 183, 187 

Oglala, 175, 193 

Teton, 186, 188, 189, 193 
Dances: 
Bear, 266, 267, 299 
Bear Society, 19, 112, 266, 267 
Big Bird, 31, 33 
Big Women’s, 51 


284, 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


[Bull. 156] 


Dances—Continued 
Bird, 83, 284 
Brag, 105 
Buzzard, 199 
Calumet, 12, 76, 101, 108, 109, 110, 
111, 123, 143, 154, 155, 156, 
158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 
164, 165, 166, 170, 171, 172, 
173, 175, 176, 178, 179, 180, 
181, 182, 184, 185, 186, 187, 
188, 189, 192, 198, 194, 195, 
197, 200, 202, 203, 204, 205, 
208, 209, 210, 268, 271-274, 
277-278, 280, 283, 284, 287, 
288, 300, 301 
Cherokee Eagle, 269-270 
distribution and comparison, 
172-206 
Fox, sn 268-269, 270, 285- 


Illinois, 2, 287, 288, 289, 291 
ee 293 (music), 


— 


Comanche, 271, 282 

Condor, equipment, 69-70 
membership, 70 
Onondaga, 68-71, 72, 73 
preparation for, 70 
ritual pattern, 71-73 
songs, 71 
speeches, 71 

Corn, 266, 299, 300 


Dance of Discovery, 162, 184 
of Thanks, 275 
Dark, 111, 112 
Deer, 271 
Discovery, 163, 182, 187 
Dream, 283 
Drum, 103, 173, 266, 272, 283, 28 
Eagle, 3, 4, 5, 9, 11, 18, 14 (fig.), 
17, 19, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 39, 
42, 45, 46, 50, 54, 67, 76, 77, 
79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 86, 87, 97, 
98, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 
112, 119, 120, 121,'125, 126, 
127, 128, 133, 136, 139, 143, 
144, 149, 153, 154, 163, 171, 
172, 178, 180, 185, 192, 193, 
194, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 
204, 206, 208, 229, 266, 267, 
268, 270, 278, 279, 280, 284, 
288, 299, 300 
announcement, 58, 174 
assignment of roles, 24, 60, 136 
blessing, 174 
Canadian Iroquois, 11 
Cayuga, 3, 11, 35, 72, 73, 74- 
75, 234 ‘(fig:), 235 (fig.), 
249, 286 
ceremony 54-56, 274, 281, 283 


INDEX 


Dances—Continued 


Eagle—Continued 

Cherokee, 2, 3, 200-201, 228, 
235, 269-270, 287, 299 

Choctaw, 280, 287 

Coldspring Seneca, 11, 13-54, 
153, 249, 288 

Comanche, 282-283 

comments on, 54, 129-130 

conclusions, 206-210 

costumes, 24, 148-149, 203 

cures associated with, 229, 230, 
271, 280, 281 

distribution and comparison, 
rade are 285-287, fig. 

equipment, 69-70 

feast, 20-21, 29-30, 62-63, 144, 
152-153, 174, 184 

floor plan, 14 (fig.), 22 (fig.), 
234 (figs.), 285-286, 301 

gestures and steps, 236-246, 
269-270, 272, 277, 278, 
281, 285, 289 

Grand River, 11, 73-74 

historic record, 87-88, 153-206 

invitations, 58, 136 

Iowa, 277-278 

Iroquois, 2, 3, 12, 73, 74, 75- 
153, 161, 162, 163, 172, 
173, 174, 175, 176, 178, 
179, 180, 181, 184, 185, 
188, 190, 192, 202, 204, 
206, 207, 209, 269, 273, 
279, 284, 285, 288, 289, 
297, 300 

list of participants, 13, 23, 230 

agen o 56-57, 75, 129, 
1 

Mexican, 271 

Newtown Seneca, 11 

Sawikila, 3 

officials <f, 13 (list), 22 (list), 
1 


Omaha, 276-277 

Onondaga, 11, 68-71, 72, 73, 
74, 209, 230-233, 234 
(fig.), 235 (fig.), 249, 
288 


origin myths, 80-91, 92, 173, 
175 


participants in, 38-54 

Pawnee, 275-276, 287 

Pueblo, 270-271, 282, 287, 
291 (fig.) 

relation to other Iroquois 
dances, 248, 266-268 

ritual, 16-20, 24-29, 34, 36- 

55, 56, 60-62, 63- 

66, 68, 102, 130-134, 
144-153, 174, 179, 230— 
233, 269-271, 275-277, 
301° 

ritual organization, 134-144, 
eT ioe (table), 300- 


311 


Dances—Continued 


Eagle—Continued 

salient features, 75-76 

Seneca, 138-54, 54-68, 73, 74, 
143, 203, 208, 233 (fig.), 
236 (fig 3 

Shawnee, 2, 3, 199, 203, 204 

sickness, 203 

Six Nations, 234 (figs.) 

songs, 3, 16-20, 24-29, 37-38, 
60-62, 67-68, 71-78, 
151-152, 179, 181, 185, 
191, 200, 203, 239-247 
(fig.), 248-267, 288, 298 

Southeast, 279-280 

speeches, 14, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 
55, 60, 63-64, 71, 141, 
148-151, 174, 208, 273 

summary, 300 

thanksgiving, 58, 144, 174 

tobacco-burning, 174 

Tonawanda, 11, 54-68, 209, 
228, 249, 288, 289 

Traits, 179 

tribal variants, 233-246 


Friendship, 201, 270 

Ga-na-un-da-do, Scalp Dance, 76 

Gane’gwi’e’, Eagle Dance, 89, 97, 
107, 108, 120, 121, 127, 141 

Grand Calumet, 187 

Grass, 283-284, 287, 298, 299, 301 

Great Feather, "49, 80 

Great raped 46 

Green Corn, 5, 49 

See also Green Corn Festival. 

Hand-in-Hand, 46 

Iowa waie’owaci (Pipe of Peace 
Dance), 277-278 

Truska, 283, 285 

Klokali, 282 

Linking-arms, 46 

Masked, 299 

Matachina, 271 

Medicine, 267 

Medicine du Charbon, 278-279 

Modern Iruska, 283 

Ne-ho-sa-den-dat, Squat Dance for 
Males, 76 

New Year, ae 29, 37, 48, 52, 69, 

Nighthawk, 202, 281 

Omaha, 283 

Omaha Eagle, 276-277 

Onondaga Condor or Eagle, 68-71, 
72, 73, 230-239, 248 

Osage Médicine du Charbon 

Peace, 108, 269, 270 

Personal Chant, 108, 125, 177 

Pigeon, 44 

Pipe, 76, 184, 188, 268, 269, 270, 
271, 272, 274, 275, 276, 277- 
278, 280, 287, 297, 299 

Pipe Bundle, 111, 186 

Pipestem, Sacred, 274 

San Juan Pipe, 271 


312 


Dances—Continued 
Scalp, 67, 76, 109, 180, 200, 269, 
‘ , 287 
See also Eagle Dance. 
Seneca Eagle, 232-239, 248, 284, 


285-286 
Shaking-a-bird’s-tail, or Scalp 
Dance, 76 
Shaking-a-fan, Tonawanda Eagle 
Dance, 76 


Sharpening-a-stick, 44 
Sioux, 103, 107, 109 
“Skin-beating,”’ 177 
Sponsor, 37, 116, 134, 135, 136, 
139, 190, 196 
Squat, 76 
Striking, 162 
Striking-the-stick, 97, 103, 105, 
107, 108, 109, 110, 133, 162, 
163, 173, 182, 190, 192, 229, 
248, 266, 267, 270, 272, 285- 
287 
Sun, 104 
Thanksgiving, 102, 103, 287 
Thunder Bird, 282 
Tobacco, 187, 272, 299 
Trotting, 46 
Victory, 200, 201, 270, 280, 287 
Wa’e’no’e’ (Striking-a-stick 
Dance), 192 
Waio’ewaci (Calumet Dance), 192, 
277-278 
Warriors Feather, 163 
White Buffalo, 185 
Women’s, 266, 268-270 
Shuffle, 267 
Dance and songs, 267-268 
Dance of Discovery, 162, 184 
of Thanks, 275 
Dance officials, seating arrangements, 
14 (fig. 
Dance patterns, i, 
Dance songs, 7, 4 
Dance wee o6-241, 248, 267-271, 280, 
85 


Dance structure, 231, 236-237, 258, 


267-269, 272, 297 

Dance survivals, 268-271 

Dancers, 14, 15, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 
29, 30, 32, 34, :36, 37, 54, 55, 58, 
60, 62, 64, 67, 69, 72, 110, 135, 
136, 139, 140, 141, 148, 149, 152, 
154, 174, 179, 181, 185, 187, 190 
191, 195, 198, 199, 201, 203, 204, 
230, 231, 232, 233, 235 (figs.), 
236 (music), 237 (pattern), 238 
(pattern), 239, 268, 273, 274, 275, 


276, 279, 283 

contests of, 268-270, 272, 274-275, 
276 

Feather, 44, 163, 164 

numbers of, 229-234, 268-279, 


281-284, 285-286, 301 

pairing of, 233, 237, 268-271, 275- 
277, 283-286 

posture of, 235, 239-241, 280, 301 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


[Bull. 156) 


Dances, list of, 266-267, 270, 271, 279 
social, 7, 125, 199 

Dark Dance, 111, 112 

Darlington, William M., 163 

Darts, ash, 7 

David, Elijah, informant, 4 

Dawn Song, 53 

De la Barre, Governor of New France, 156 

Deardorff, M. Ho 81is2p3H 

Death, beliefs regarding, 120 

Death’ Cult, 204, 206 

Death Feast, women’s feast, 177 

Deep-night, Seneca man, 34° 

Deer, John, Seneca man, 32 

Deer bladder, use of, 193 

Deer Dance, 271 

Deer, sacrifice of, 91, 92, 95, 96, 97, 99, 
100, 101, 181, 187 

Deerfoot, Seneca Indian, 42 

Deer’s head, 177 

Deganawidah, Iroquois culture hero, 155 

Delaware Indians, 78, 104, 123, 159, 167, 
168, 170, 171, 177. 201, 202; 
203, 279, 281 

Denig, Edwin Thompson, 188 

mR Frances, 272, 284, 287, 298, 

99 


Decent, female line, 8 
Deskaheh (Alexander General), Cayuga 
chief, 228, 229, 232, 239, 248, 
263, 264, 265, 266, 300 
De Soto Expedition, 195, 197 
Dew Eagle, legends about, 83-91 
prayers to, 15-16, 24, 25, 34, 36, 
37, 59-60, 62, 75, 80, 82, 91, 
92, 111, 119 
Supernatural Being, 81, 84, 86, 87, 
88, 94, 96, 97, 99, 105, 110, 112, 
113-117, 119, 127, 128, 129, 134, 
145, 146, 147, 148, 173 
Dew Eagles, classification of, 113-117 
Dhegiha Indians, 194 
Diffusion along water courses, 178, 179, 
181, 185, 188-189, 194, 203, 271 
Dakota, limit of, 193 
Fox Indians, agents in, 184 
French, agents in, 183, 195 
of ceremony, 74, 88, 109, 154 ff., 
163, 164-172 
of pit trapping, 100 
of War Dance, 104 
Direct historic approach, 1, 172, 178, 
204, 208, 209 


»| Discovery Dance, 163, 182, 187 


Dishes, bark, 178 

Disks, catlinite, 205 

Distribution, 174 ff. 

Divination, methods of, 129 

Djido’-gwas, Seneca Indian, 83, 107, 120— 
121, 140, 141, 142, 148, 150 

Doctor, Rev. Peter W., informant, 4 

Dog Rib Indians, 175 

Dogs, sacrifice of, 146 

Dogs’ flesh, served at feast, 104, 106, 
185, 283, 285 

heads, presented to dancers, 103, 

106, 107, 177 


INDEX 


313 


Do’nyonda’”’, name for Eagle, 96, 98, | Eagle Dance—Continued 
99 


Dorsey, James Owen, 191, 275, 277 

Doudy, Lindsay, 31, 32 

“Down-fended,”’ seclusion, 113 

Draped-over-a-log, Seneca man, 42, 51, 
2 


Dream Dance, 283 

Dream experiences, 117—129 

Dream guessing, 69, 117, 123 

Dreams, belief in, 7, 57, 75, 112, 117, 
124, 127, 129, 142, 150, 176 

Drum beaters, 14 (fig.), 22 (fig.), 151 

Drum ee 103, 173, 266, 272, 283, 


Drummers, dance performers, 25, 71, 
136, 183, 190, 194, 273 
Drums, 13, 14 (fig.), 15, 16, 22 (fig.), 
25, 37, 44, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60, 64, 
66, 67, vad 95, 103, 106, 133, 136, 
148, 151, 161, 164, 173, 174, 
176, 182, 183, 187, 190, 191, 194, 
195, 202, 203, 238, 255, 256, 
266, 268, 270, 271, 272, 273, 
274, 275, 277, 278, 279, 281, 283, 
297, 299 
tambourine, 199 
Drumsticks, 44, 203 
Drying racks, 130 
Duck, beliefs regarding, 180, 205 
heads, 195 
Mallard, 195, 205 
Dutch, relations with Indians, 159 
Dye, red, 134 


Eagle, American, 81 
anthropomorphic, 206 
baiting, 95-99, 113 
Bald, 82, 83, 117, 278 
catching, 96-97, 98-99, 100, 200 
celestial being, 32, 33, 59, 62, 68, 75, 
81, 86, 93, 96, 98, 117, 175, 178, 
180, 185, 192, 200, 202, 203, 
205, 210 
dreams of, 119 
feathers, 282 
used for fans, 69, 92, 93, 94, 95, 
96, 97, 98-99, 131, 178, 
187, 190 
worn by Iroquois, 117, 199 
Golden, 82, 83, 88, 195 
shooting, 93-95, 173, 175, 200 
sickness, 179, 199, 200, 203 
suits, 203 
tail, 169, 170, 192, 195, 198, 201, 
277, 280 
trapping, Fae 93, 96, 98-99, 100, 
1 
? 
wand and Calumet, 275-281 
Warrior, masked, 206 
wings, 170, 181, 185, 191, 196, 202, 
278, 280, 285, 301 
Eagle Cult, 210, 282, 301 
Eagle Dance, 3, 4, 5, 9, 11, 13, 14 (fig.), 
17, 19, 31, 32, 38, 35, 36, 39, 42, 
45, 46, 50, 54, 67, 76, 77, 79, 80, 


81, 82, 83, 86, 87, 97, 98, 105, 107, 
108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 119, 120, 
121, 125,126, 127, 128, 133; 136, 
139, 143, 144, 149, 153, 154, 163, 
171, 172, 178, 180, 185, 192, 193, 
194, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 
206, 208, 229, 266, 267, 268, 270, 
278, 279, 280, 284, 288, 299, 300 

announcement, 58, 174 

assignment of roles, 24, 60, 136 

blessing, 174 

Canadian Iroquois, 11 

Cayuga, 3, 11, 35, 72, 73, 74-75, 
234 (fig.), 235 (fig. ), 249, 286 

ceremony, 54-56, 274, 281, 283 

Cherokee, 2, 3, 500-201, 228, 235, 
269-270, 287, 299 

Choctaw, 280, 287 

Coldspring Seneca, 11, 138-54, 153, 
249, 288 

Comanche, 282-283 

costumes, 24, 148-149, 203 

cures associated with, 229, 230, 271, 
280, 281 

distribution and comparison, 172- 
206, 285-287, fig. 30 

equipment, 69-70 

feast, 20-21, 29-30, 62-63, 144, 
152-153, 174, 184 

floor plan, 14 (fig.), 22 (fig.), 234 
(figs.), 285-286, 301 

gestures and steps, 236-246, 269- 
270, 272, 277, 278, 281, 285, 289 

Grand River, 11, 73-74 

historic record, 87—88, 153-206 

invitations, 58, 136 

Iowa, 277-278 

Iroquois, 2, 3, 12, 73, 74, 75-153, 
161, 162, 163, 172, 1738, 174, 175, 
176, 178, 179, 180, 181, 184, 185, 
188, 190, 192, 202, 204, 206, 207, 
209, 269, 273, 279, 284, 285, 288, 
289, 297, 300 

list of participants, 13, 23, 230 

membership, 56-57, 75, 129, 150 

Mexican, 271 

Newtown Seneca, 11 

Sawikila, 3 

officials of, 13 (list), 22 (list), 107 

Omaha, 276-277 

Onondaga, 11, 68-71, 72, 73, 74, 
209, 230-233, 234 (fig.), 235 
(fig.), 249, 288 

origin myths, 80-91, 92, 173, 175 

participants in, 38-54 

Pawnee, 275-276, 287 

Pueblo, 270-271, 282, 287, 291 (fig.) 

relation to other Iroquois dances, 
248, 266-268 

ritual, 16-20, 24-29, 34, 36-87, 55, 
56, 60-62, 63-66, 68, 102, 130- 
134, 144-153, 174, 179, 230-233, 
269-271, 275-277, 301 

ritual organization, 134-144, 231- 
232 (table), 300-301 


314 


Eagle Dance—Continued 

roots of, 102-113 

salient features, 75-76, 179 

Seneca, 13-54, 54-68, 73, 74, 143, 
203, ’208, 233 (fig.), 236 (fig.) 

Shawnee, 3, 3, 199, 203, 204 

sickness, "203 

Six Nations, 234 (figs.) 

songs, 3, 16-20, 24-29, 37-38, 60- 
62, 67-68, 71-73, 151-152, 179, 
181, 185, 191, 200, 203, 239-247 
(fig.), 248-267, 288, 298 

Southeast, 279-280 

speeches, 14, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 55, 
60, 63-64, 71, 141, 148-151, 174, 
208, 273 

summary, 300 

thanksgiving, 58, 144, 174 

tobacco-burning, 174 


Tonawanda, 11, 54-68, 209, 228, 
249, 288, 289 
traits, 179 


tribal variants, 233-246 
Eagle Knight dancers, 300 
Eagle Society, 3, 9, 10, If 13; 21, 31, 
34, 36, 39, 49, 53, 57, 59, 63, 64, 
68, 73, 74, 80, 81, 83, 88, ’90, peek 
112, 119, 121, 122, 124, 126; 128; 
cat 134, 136, 153, 173, 184, 208, 
61 
bundles, 13, 36, 57-58, 77, 110, 111, 
120, 128, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 
136, 137, 174, 179, 180, 185, 200, 
Earl of Loudoun, 168 
Earth-hiller, Seneca woman, 21, 38, 43, 
48, 50, 53, 54 
Echo, John, informant, 94 
English, relations with Indians, 157, 159, 
160, 162, 165, 167, 170 
English language, 10, 41 
acceptance of, 6, 7 
Epilepsy, see Eagle sickness. 
Ethnobotany, 52 
Ethnology, history of, 3, 76—80 
Evans, Bessie and May G., 270-271 
Exogamy, 142, 143 


Factions, 50, 144, 210 

Faith-keeper, Indian official, 46, 47, 48, 
51, 53, 150 

Falling-day, singer, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 
61, 62, 63, 96-97, 98, 112 

Falling-world, Cayuga man, 27 

Falls of St. Anthony, 186, 274 

False-faces, 30, 40, 45, 181, 185 

Fans, Calumet, 130, 157 

feather, 14 (fig.), 15, 16, 18, 22 

(fig.), 25, 29, 34, 36, 37, 38, 55, 
58, 59, 60, 62, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 
70, 74, 75, 77, 81, 101, 110, 111, 
120, 128, 130, 131, 134, 135, 136, 
137, 139, 140, 145, 148, 151, 152, 
154, 163, 173, 174, 180, 181, 182, 
183, 185, 187, 192, 196, 199, 200, 
202, 204, 277, 278, 279, 284, 300 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


[Bull. 156] 


“Far Indians,” 158, 160, 172, 186 

Farmer’s Brother, Seneca chief, 104 

Fast-talker, Seneca man, 34, 150 

eae ea wae relationship, 188, 190, 
1 


Fatty, ae Seneca woman, 13, 15, 19, 


Kenneth, 32 
Sam, Seneca man, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 


Feast of Fools, 117 
of gentes, 269 
of the Dead, 206 
Feasts, Bundle, 184 
Calumet, 162 
ceremonial, 232, 283, 285, 300 
a Dance, 20-21, 29-30, 62-63, 
1 
Ten Days’, 8 
Feather Dance, 51, 53, 82, 86, 266, 281, 
287, 299 
Feathers, see name of bird. 
Fenton, Olive Ortwine, 4 
Fenton, William N., 338, 229, 233, 248, 
269, 270, 279, 284, 285, 301 
position at dance, 14 (fig.), 23 (fig.) 
Festivals, 7 
Green Corn, 6, 42, 43, 47 
Midwinter, 21, 35, 36, 40, 42, 43, 
st Nala 73, 110, 113, 117, 123, 144 
New Year’s, 29, 51 
Fetish, 194 
Field Work, progress of, 10 
Fillmore, John C., 287, 296 
Finley, William, 88 
Firearms, 170 
Fire carriers, 194 
Fire keepers, 168 
Fish, Roy, 230 
Fish’ Carrier, Cayuga chief, 104 
Fish Dance, 46, 125, 267 
Five Nations, 117, "154, 156, 157, 158, 
159, 165 
Flag of Truce, 130 
Flageolet, 52 
Flags, white, 164, 165 
Flamingo feathers, use of, 198 
Flannery, Regina, 177 
See also Herzfeld. 
“‘Flatheads,” 154, 165 
See also Catawba. 
Fletcher, Alice C., 181, 275, 276, 277, 
287, 296, 298, 300 
Flute, ceremonial, 185 
reed, 278 
Singer, dance official, 32 
Food distribution, ceremonial, 17, 174 
Fork, wooden, 187 
Forked Eye motif, 205 
Forked-tailed Kite Dance, 192, 193 
Fortune Teller, Indian official, 33, 57, 70 
Four, ceremonial number, 131, 174, 181, 
184, 185, 193, 196, 204 
Four Angels, supernatural beings, 32, 
33, 66, 108, 151 


INDEX 


Four Ceremonies, 103 

Fox Indians, 154, 156, 158, 171, 172, 175, 
181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 203, 
209, 228, 268-269, 270, 272, 274, 
279, 288, 297, 299 

music, 291, 297, 300 

French, relations with Indians, 156, 157, 
158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 165, 
167, 171, 183, 195 

French and Indian Wars, effect of, 203 

Friendship Dance, 201, 270 

Funeral customs, 8 

Fur trade, effect on Indian policy, 156 


Ga-do-jih, Indian law, 83, 116 
Gabsaeo. na, Giant Crow, 90, 91, 99, 


116 
Games, ball, 200, 299 
baseball, 3 42, 49, 269, 280 
bowl, 126, 138, 141, 144 
hoop-and-javelin, ‘a 
lacrosse, 7, 42, 188, 144 
peach-stone, 125 
snow-snake, 7 
Ga-na-un-da-do, Scalp Dance, 76 
Gane’gwa’’e (Ganegwa’ e), Eagle Dance, 
ae 97, 107, 108, 120, 21, 127, 
1 
dance pattern, 285, 286 (fig.), 287 
music, 287-300 
relatives of, 285-300 
Garangula, Onondaga orator, 156 
ae Chief Alexander, informant, 4, 


Genesee River, 95 
Genesis myth, 103 
George, Rudolph, 31 
ally, Seneca woman, 31 
George II, King of England, 168 
Ghosts, belief in, 28, 44, 45, 97 
Giant Crow, 90, 128, 173 
See also Great Crow. 
Gibson, Chief John, 73 
Simeon, interpreter, 4, 73 
Gift custodian, Dance official, 14, 22, 
23, 24, 25, 139, 194 
Gifts, presentation of, 15, 18, 59, 105, 
139, 155, 174, 179, 181, 191, 194, 
275, 276, 278, 283-284, 285, 300 
Gilbert, Wm. H., Jr., 200, 201, 235, 269 
Gillespie, John W., 228, 299 
Goldenweiser, Alexander A., 3, 31, 74, 
142, 207 
Goose feathers, used for fans, 131 
wings, use of, 167 
Goschgoschink, Mission town, 203 
Grand Calumet Dance, 187 
Grand River, Canada, 3, 42, 49, 72, 73, 
88, 94, 114, 133, 151, 153 
Eagle Dance on, 73-74 
Grant, Peter, 187 
Grass seEne, 283-284, 287, 298, 
Gray, Earle V., 21 
Great Crow, celestial being, 90, 116, 173 
Great Elm, Seneca Indian, 150 


299, 


315 


Great Feather Dance, 49, 80 

Great-grandfathers, supernatural 
ings, 184 

Great Miami River, 160 

Great-night, Seneca man, 21, 27, 50, 
ol, 122, 137 

Great Quiver Dance, 46 

Great Payee celestial being, 30, 81, 116, 

Great-root, Seneca man, 55 

Great ae Supernatural being, 53, 


Green, Fred, 230 
Green Bay, Wis., 127, 186, 188, 192, 
209, 272, 274 
Green Corn Dance, 5, 49 
See also Green Corn Festival. 
Green Corn Festival, 6, 42, 43, 47, 
177, 202, 229, 281 
Griffin, James, 298 
Gros Ventre Indians, 175, 188 
Ground, Harrison, 70 
Louisa, 124 
Guests, carrying of, 197 
Guns, 191 


be- 


Ha’’guks, name for Dew Eagle, 88, 89, 
90, 91, 94, 114 
Haigler, King, 165 
Hair-burned-off, ritual speaker, 54, 55, 
56, 58, 61, 63, 64, 65, 98, 115 
“Hako area,” distribution map of all 
dance forms in, fig. 30 
ceremony, 178-179, 181, 186, 188, 
189, 193, 197, 204, 205, 209, 275- 
276, 278, 279, 284, 287, 297, 298, 
299, 300, 301 
tribes, 175, 176, 194 
Half-King, chief, 160 
Half-mask, 270 
Hallowell, A. I., 5 
Hammocks, 127, 128 
Hand-in-hand Dance, 46 
Handsome Lake, Seneca Prophet, 6, 
32, 33, 40, 42, 43, 66, 68, 78, 79, 
102, 103, 104, 107, 108, 111, 118, 
143, 145, 153, 207 
Handsome Lake Revelations, 19, 28, 
42, 45, 47, 51, 68, 75, 78 
Hare Indians, 175 
Harrington, M. R., 4, 134 
Hasinai Indians, 197 
Hawk, 202, 205 
feathers, used for fans, 69 
hen, 117 
pet, 44 
sharp-shinned, 117 
wings, use of, 167 
See also Clan. 
Headdress, 24, 100, 149, 270 
Heads, ceremonial use of, 178 
See also under name of animal. 
Heckewelder, John, 104 
He-is-carrying-an-ax, Seneca man, 34 
Hecisyeomting, Snipe clan, 11, 54, 63, 75, 
6 


? 


316 


He-strikes-the-rushes, informant, 11, 18, 
20, 24, 31, 35, 47, 51, 55, 56, 61, 
65, 69, 74, 80, 105, 109, 110, 111, 
113, ° 114; °115;--LIGP 61187 2725, 
127-129, 130, 132, 133, 135, 136, 
138, 141 
He-talks-fast, informant, 133 
He-watches-water, 24 
Helper, Bear Clan chief, 11, 54, 55, 56, 
61, 63, 65, 75, 126, 127 
Hematite, use of, 133, 134 
Hemlock bark, used for dye, 134 
Hemlocks-lying-down, informant, 8, 9, 
13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 38, 41, 
43, 48, 49-53, 54, 110, 115, 116, 
121, 122, 124, 128, 130, 132, 133, 
135, 137, 140 
Henhawk, Floyd, informant, 4, 68, 70 
Hennepin, Father Louis, 187, 271-273 
Herbalism, knowledge of, 39 
Heron wings, use of, 167 
Herzfeld, Prof. Regina Flannery, 3 
See also Flannery. 
Herzog, George, 228, 297 
Hewitt, J. N. B., 79, 93, 94-95, 113, 
142, 161 
Hidatsa Indians, 100, 101, 131, 175, 
180, 189, 299 
Hill, Carry Logan, informant, 228, 230 
Cephas, informant, 4 
History, documentary, 153-206 
levels of, 1, 206, 207 
personal, 9-10, 316 38 ff., 207 
problems of, 207—210 
See also Method. 
Hitchiti Indians, 175 
Ho-de-no-sau-nee, Teoawers league, 76 
Hodge, Frederick W., 
Hogs, served to dancers, 107, 137, 152, 185 
Hominy soup, served at feast, 55, 57, 
62, 63, 66, 125 
Honored child, symbolic, 181 
Hopi Indians, 175 
Hopping Society, 277 
Horse Dance, 188 
Horse, drawshave, 7 
tails, waving, 193, 194 
Horsehair streamers, 195 
Horses, 45, 51, 191, 284 
Horse-tail tips, use of, 131 
Houma Indians, 281 
Houses, clapboard, 7 
plank, 7 
Huckleberries, 7 
Hulbert, Albert Butler, 134 
Human head, used in dances, 107, 177 
Hunka ceremony, 189, 193, 194, 276, 
278, 287, 301 
See also Hako ceremony. 
Huron Indians, 78, 93, 100, 106, 117, 
118, 123, 154, 156, 160, 172, 174, 
176, 178 
Husk Faces, 36 


sce Pierre le Moyne d’, explorer, 
81 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


[Bull. 156] 


Illinois Indians, 2, 154, 156, 157, 161, 


170, 171, 172, 181, 182, 183, 184, 
186, 187, 197, 209, 210, 272, 273, 
288, 289, 300, fig. 30 
music, 291, 293, 297 
Indian Service, 10 
Indiana University, 3, 203, 228 
Individual differences, 1-2, oy 8. 38, 
39-40, 110, 206, 239, 246, 264 
Informants, 68, 152 
Institute of Human Relations, 2 
Introduction, 1-12 
Invitations, 136 
Involution, "207 
Iowa Indians, 181, 184, 185, 186, 187, 
188, 189, 192, 193, 197, 209, 210, 
277, 278, 283 
Iowa waie’owaci (peace dance), 277-278 
Iroquois Confederacy, 76, 88, 98, 117, 
123, 159, 169, 170 
Iroquois Eagle’ Dance as oe phe- 
nomenon, 75-153, 
Iroquois Indians, 2, 3, 5, ci 10), T2, 
35, 39, 47, 48, 50, TES 77, 83, 88, 
90, 92, 95, 98, 100, 103, 104, 107, 
108, 110, 111, 113, 114, 117, 118, 
121, 123, 133, 134, 138, 141, 144, 
153, 154, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 
162, 163, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 
170, 171, 172, 473,;"h74475, 176, 
178, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 190, 
193, 194, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 
205, 206, 208, 209, 233, 268, 270, 
271, 272, 278, 280, 281, 282, 289, 
297, 301 
culture, 11, 98 
language, 10 
League, 155, 157, 158, 160, 163, 165, 
168, 202 
Longhouse, 229 
music, 3, 152, 300 
studies of, genealogical, 3, 76-80 
women, position of, 53 
Iruska Dance, 283, 285 
It-dips-water, Seneca woman, 21, 22, 27, 


? 


Jack, David, informant, 88 

Jacobs, Chief John, informant, 4 

Jamieson, Esther, informant, 228 
Sadie, informant, 228 

Jemez Indians, 175 

Jemison, Mary, 48, 104, 106 

Jenness, Diamond, 3 

Jesuit Missionaries, 117, 118, 158 

Jesuit Relations, 176, 178 

Jewelry, 170 

Jimmerson, Avery, Seneca man, 32 
Howard, informant, 4 
John, informant, 4 
Walter, 32 

John, Chauncey Johnny, informant, 4, 
deen et cae 
ake 
Richard J., 32, 34, 37, 248, 255, 265 
Willie, 229, 232, 248 


INDEX 


Johnson, Bill, 232 


317 


Local diversity, 73-74, 88, 206, 207 


Chief Lyman, informant, 4, 78, 79} Logan, Jake, Seneca man, 32 


Esquire, 108 
Sir William, 111, 165, 166, 168, 169, 
170, 171, 172 
Jokes, told at feast, 56, 61, 65, 72, 141, 
142, 143, 144, 150, 201, 233 
Jones, Albert, informant, 4, 32, 36 
Geneva, 36, 228 
Horatio, 105 
Jennie, 4 
William, 269 
Joutel, Henri, explorer, 164, 195, 197 


Kansa Indians, 189, 195, 278, fig. 30 

Kansas River, 279 

Kaska Indians, 175 

Kaw Indians, 196 

Keeper of the Pipe, Indian official, 161 

Kellogg, Louise P., 272 

Kenoshmeg, Dave, dancer, 282 

Kickapoo Indians, 155, 161, 175, 184 

Kinietz, W. Vernon, 162, 163, 164, 279 

Kiowa Indians, 189, fig. 30 

Klokali Dance, 282 

Koasati Indians, 175 

Koroa Indians, 272, 281, fig. 30 

Ku’rahus (priest), 275 

Kurath, Edward, 230 

Kurath, Gertrude P., 3, 11, 12, 73, 74, 
151, 184, 187, 198, 200, 209, 230, 
236, 248, 296, 299 

Kutenai Indians, 175 


Lacrosse stick, 7, 52 
Lafitau, J. F., 103, 157, 158, 162 
La Flesche, Francis, 195, 196, 276 
Lake Erie, 279 
Lalemant, Jerome, 87 
Lamps, kerosene, 7 
La Salle, explorer, 183, 195, 197 
Lawsey, "Dave, Cherokee, 269 
Leads Him, 21 
Leaf, Bill, 296 
Leaf-blowing-down, Seneca woman, 124 
League of the Iroquois, 87, 117 
Legend of Bloody Hand, 80-82 
Legends, 74, 93 
Origin, 80-91 
Leggings, 24, 148, 152 
Le haere Pratz, Antoine S., 198, 272, 
Le eos acques Eustache, missionary, 
15 


Liars, treatment of, 183 

Library of Congress, 3 

Lightning, Snipe clan sachem, 115 

Linking-arms Dance, 46 

Linton, Ralph, 205 

Literature, survey of, 154-172 

Litters, 197 

Little Folk, Supernatural Beings, 111 

Little Water Medicine Company, 45, 48, 
$1, 96;°100;; PLT, 122) 113,..114, 
115, 116, 132, 180 


Joseph, Chief, 3, 4, 73, 74, 90-91, 
229, 230-239, 248, 255, 263, 264, 
265, 266, 300 
Robert, 230, 231, 233, 235 (fig.), 240 
Long, Stephen H.. 191 
Will West, 200, 201, 270, 300 
Longhorns, Seneca informant, 81, 128, 
132, 133, 135 
Longhouse, GG 938-239 
pice ibe Religion of Handsome Lake, 


Lowie, R. H., 188, 283 


Mcellwain, Charles Howard, editor, 157 
Mcllwraith, T. F., 282 

Mahican Indians, 203 

Maize symbolism, 181 

Malacite Indians, 175, 178 

Male and female symbols, 269, 270, 275- 

276, 278, 280, 285 
Mandan Indians, 175, 274, 275, fig. 30, 


Marquette, Father Jacques, explorer, 2, 
12, 154, 161, 162, 164, 170, 182, 
183, 184, 273, 287, 289, 301 

Mascoutens, 155, 161, 186 

Masked Dance, 299 

Masks, 8, 44, 282, 285, 299, 301 

Mason, Bernard, 269, 272, 283 

Roy M., 4 

Massaging, ceremonial, 201 

Matachina Dance, 271 

Matrilineal dreams, 119 

Matron or Cook, Dance official, 15, 23, 
53, 152 

Maufaunwy, Cebyn Dwajty, 282-283 

Maximilan, Alexander, 275 

May, Mark, 2 

Measles, 19 

Meat, served at dance, 36, 37, 55, 57, 60, 
62, 64, 174, 194 

Medicine Bag, 130 

Medicine Company, 7, 64, 66, 80, 81, 
96, 109, 110, 112, 116, 152 

Medicine Dance, 267 

Médicine du Charbon, 278-279 

Medicine Lodges, 77 

Medicine man, 79 

Modigne BPs bundle dance, 155, 186, 
1 


Medicine Pipe Dance, 189 

Medicine Societies, 8, 9, 20, 33, 35, 40, 
45, 50, 54, 55, 56, 64, 75, 77, 102, 
106, 107, 118, 119, 148, 146, 153, 
154, 173, 176, 185, 199, 202, 209, 
266 

Medicines, herbal, 40, 52, 58, 111, 120, 
124, 125 

Mekeel, Scudder, 5 

Menomini Indians, 175, 186, 187, 271, 
272, fig. 30, 299 


318 


Meskwaki tribe, Fox Indians, 268, 274, 
279, 282, 287 

Message sticks, 42 

Messenger, Dance official, 14, 23, 55, 57, 
58, 60, 62, 116, 134, 135, 136, 139, 
179, 182, 190, 194, 196, 204 

Method, comparative, 172 ff., 185, 199, 

208 


ethnohistory, 2, 208 (upstreaming) 
field work, 10-11, 199 
functional, 2 
historical reconstruction, 172, 178, 
188, 204, 208 
Mexican bird dances, 300 
Miami Indians, 154, 155, 156, 159, 160, 
161, 162, 163, 164, 167, 171, 172, 
181, 182, 186, 203, 209, 210 
Michelson, Truman, 184 
Michilimackinac, French settlement, 
183, 188 
Micmac Indians, 175 
Midwest, location of survival of Calumet 
Dance, 268, 269, 270 
Midwinter Festival, 21, 35, 36, 40, 42, 
43, 53, 56, 73, 110, 113, 117, 123, 
144, 177, 229 
Milwaukee Public Museum, 131 
Mingo Indians, 160 
ee ceremonial use of, 123, 124, 
14 


Missionaries, opinions of, 287 
relations with Indians, 40, 41 
Missisauga Indians, 203 
Mississippi River, 271-272, 274, 279, 
82, 285, fig. 30 
Mississippi Valley, 165 
Missouri River, 279, 285, fig. 30 
Moccasins, 148, 161 
Modern Iruska Dance, 283 
Mohawk Indians, 79, 100, 106, 157, 
159, 166, 167, 168, 169, 177 
Moieties, 8, 14, 15, 20, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 
30, 32, 35, 46, 48, 55,-60,.71, 72, 
119, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 134, 
136, 137, 138-144, 150, 174, 179, 
181, 191, 232-233, 285 
Bones peeauuves at dance, 35, 61, 62, 


Montagnais-Naskapi Indians, 175 

Mooney, James, 96, 100, 101, 197, 199, 
200, 282 

Morgan, Lewis H., 3, 76, 77, 78, 102, 104, 
105, 142 

Morning Star sacrifice, 180 

Morris, aaa adopted by Indians, 
104 


Mortar, corn, 7 

Moser, Lucas, 299 

Mosopelea Indians, 194 

Munsee Indians, 202, 203 

Munsee-Mahican Indians, 202 

Murdock, George Peter, 2, 144 

Murie, James, R., 188, 275, 283, 284 

Museum of the American Indian, Heye 
Foundation, 5 

Music, see Songs. 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


[Bull. 156] 


Musical instruments, 52, 230-232, 238, 
255-256 

Musical range, 254-255, 264, 266-267, 
284, 288, 297-298 

Musical recordings, 227, 248, 255, 286, 
291, 299 

Musical sequence, 238, 252, 263, 266, 
288, 298 

Musicians, 186 

Muskogeans, 201 

Myths, 103, 145-146, 200, 202 


Nadoessi (Sioux), 192 
Names, patrilineal English, 8 
personal, 8 
Nanticoke Indians, 78, 203 
Narragansett Indians, 177 
Naskapi Indians, 202 
Natchez Indians, 175, 194, 195, 198, 
201, 209, 280, 281 
National Museum of Canada, 3 
Ne-ho-sa-den-dat, Squat Dance for 
Males, 76 
Neuse River, 159 
New Fire Ceremony, 180 
New Religion, 78, 79 
Newtown Longhouse, 4, 11, 26, 29, 30, 
42, 47, 49, 50, 54, 58, 65, 74, 75, 
80, 81, 109, 112, 116, 127, 133, 
135, 188, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 
144, 148, 150 
New Year, Seneca, 9 
New Year ete 21, 29, 37, 48, 52, 69, 
, 125 
New Year’s Festival, 29, 51 
New York State Museum, 4, 116, 131 
Niagara gorge, 95 
Nicotiana rustica, 34, 132 
Nighthawk, celestial being, 202, 205 
Dance, 202, 281 
wings, 281 
Nitinat tribe, 282 
Northern Plains Indians, 12 
North Star Bundle ceremonies, 180 
Nuttall, Zelia, 300 


Ochre, yellow, used for paint, 134 
Ofo, Siouan-speaking tribe, 194 
Oglala Indians, 189, 193, 274 
Ohio River, 159, 195, 279, 301 
Ohsweken, 43 


Ojibwa Hea, 108, 170, 174, 175, 186, 
1 


’ 

Okanagan Indians, 175 

Oki, familiar spirit, 118 

Omaha Dance, 283 

Omaha Eagle Dance, 276-277 

Omaha Indians, 175, 179, 188, 189, 190, 
191, 192, 195, 196, 205, 209, 228, 
275, 276-277, 278, 279, 282, 283, 
284, 287, 288, 289, 300 

music, 291, 293, 297, 298, 300 

Omaha wa’wa", 276 

Omens, belief in, 201 

Oneida Indians, 104, 106, 127, 133, 159, 
166, 167, 168 


INDEX 


Onondaga Condor or Eagle Dance, 68- 
71, 72, 73, 230-239, 248 
Onondaga Indians, 4, 41, 51, 68, 69, 75, 
88, 90, 93, 94, 95, 110, 114, 156, 
172, 177, 304, 932° 233, 235 (fig.), 
236. (fig.), 237 (dance pattern), 
239, 248, 256, 262, 264 
Onondaga "Longhouse, 4, "42, 62, 68, 70, 
1a, 19, LO7s id Eee 154, 158, 
159, 160, 162, 168, 209, 228, 229, 
248 
Fg te N. Y., 4, 73,.¢5; 78, 153, 159, 
5 


Onondaga Reservation, Syracuse, N.Y., 
68, 165, 172 
Open Eye motif, 205 
Orations, funeral, 41 
Origin legends, 80-91, 92, 173, 175 
Osage Indians, 175, 139, 194, "195, 196, 
209, 278, 279, 285 
Osage Médicine du Charbon, 278-279 
Osage River, 195, 279 
Osgood, Cornelius, 2 
Osprey feathers, used for fans, 131 
Oto Indians, 189, 190, 195, 196, 278, 
fig. 30 
Ottawa Indians, 154, 156, 157, 158, 160, 
162, 170, 171, 172, 183, 184, 186, 
187, 209, 279, 282° 
Otter Society, 112 
Outagami Tribe, Fox Indians, 268 
Owl, beliefs regarding, 180 
celestial being, 195, 205 
screech, 13 
feathers, 195 


Paddles, maple, 20 
Pails, 20, 22, 30, 34, 55, 62, 63, 66, 152, 
153, 178 


Paint, ceremonial, 194 
face, red and black, 134, 148, 149, 
173, 190, 199, 202 
red, ceremonial use of, 133, 134, 
194, 196, 199, 202 
Pallettes, stone, 205 
Parallels, Cherokee and Iroquois, 199 ff. 
Parent-child relationship, 176 
Parker, Arthur C., 3, 4, 76, 77, 78, 79, 
80, 109, 131, 132, 134, 139, 148, 
284 
Ely S., 76 
Nicholson, 76 
Parsons, Elsie C., 271, 282, 300 
Partridge feathers, used for fans, 131 
Parts-the-riffles, 43. 
Passamaquoddy Indians, 175 
Pattern, consistency, 148, 173, 174 
dance, 246 
limitation on comparative method, 
185, 206, 209 
of sequence, 162, 180 
reciprocal services, 138, 142, 143 
ritual, 2, 9, 30, 36, 55, W173 74, 75, 
105, 144 ae 162, 307, 209 
song. See Song, pattern. 
stability, 197, 204, 207 


982306—53——22 


319 


Pawnee, Caddoan, 275 

Pawnee Hako Ceremony, 12.17%, 
178-179, 180, 185, 188, 
193, 209, 275-276, 288, 
(music), 298, 300, 301 

Pawnee Indians, 12, 111, 155, 171, 
TiS ol con 180, 181, 182, 
186, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 
195, 196, 205, 209, 210, 271, 
278, 279, 282) 283, 284, 287, 
289, 300, 301 

music, 291, 293, 297, 300 

Peabody Museum, 328 

Peace ceremony, 195 

Peace Dance, 108, 269, 270 

Pénicaut, M. , explorer, 281 

Penobscot Indians, il7f) 

Perrot, Nicholas, 171, 186, 192 

Personal Chant, 108, "125, i 

Personality, studies of, 9, 206, 207 

Pestle, dumbbell, 7 

Peyote Cult, 202 

Phonetic note, 12 

Phonetic script, use of, 10 

Phratries, 8, 71, Made 128, 138, 139, 140, 
142, 150 

Piankashaw band, Miami Indians, 163 

Pickawillany, Indian town, 163 

Pickup, Alice, 3 

Pierce, Chief Howard, 69 

Pig, pet, 52 

Pigeon Dance, 44 

Pig’s head, served at feast, 29, 30, 34, 
55, 57, 62, 63, 107, 110, 118, ’120, 
121, 129, 135, “137, 147 

Pipe, bird-effigy, 205 

Calumet, 111, 155, 156, 157, 158, 

ibe 161, 162, 163, 166, hee 182, 
195 


ceremonial, 194, 197, 198 

corn husk, 196 

council, 155 

Hako, 111, 155 

holder, 187 

passing, 201, 203, 204 

peace, 110, aie 156, 157, 158, 159, 
160, 165, 167, 169, 177: 182, 186, 
189, 202; 271, 277, 279 

red lout, 156, 157, 158, 182, 185, 
18 


172, 
189, 
293 


172, 
185, 
194, 
274, 
288, 


seven gens, 193 
smoking, 167, 176, 183 
tobacco, 69, 155, 158 
war, 187 
Pipe Bundle Dance, 111, 186 
Pipe Dance, 76, 184, 188, 268, 269, 270, 
271, 272; 274, 275, 276, 277-278, 
280, 287, 297, 299° 
Pipestem Dance, Sacred, 274 
Pipe stems, catlinite, 186 
' feathered, 191, 193, 273, 275, 301 
painted, 155 


Pipestone, 199 
Pipestone Quarry, 186, 274, 287, fig. 30, 
301. 


320 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


[Bull. 156] 


Plains Indians, 24, 97, 100, 104, 148,| Rattles, bark cylinder—Continued 


175, 271, 274, 282, 283, 300 
Platte River, 275, 279, fig. 30 
Pleiades, mythical beings, 83 
Pokeberries, 134 
Ponca Indians, 175, 189, 191, 192, 195, 
196, 277, 278, fig. 30 
Ponies, gift of, 276 
Pontiac’s conspiracy, 109, 170 
Porcupine quills, use of, 131 
Pork, served at feast, 14 (fig.), 22 (fig.), 
29, 107, 137 
Portageville, N. Y., 95 
Possession, 112 
Potatoes, 7, 51 
Potawatomi Indians, 154, 170, 175, 183, 
186, 187, 210, 271, 283 
Prairie, 184 
Pouch, bladder, 190 
Poudry, William, Indian headman, 125 
Presents, given at dances, 35, 63, 65, 66, 
72, 124, 125, 136, 137,150, 152, 
157, 177, 198, 196, 197, 202, 278 
Priest, Dance official, 14, 22, 93, 24, 31, 
a2, 34, 55, 59, Tt 136, 137, 145, 
146-147, 148, 174, 182, 204, 
230-231, 232, 275 
Projection of kinship, 173, 196 
of pattern, 207 
Property, inheritance of, 8 
Pryse, Rev. and Mrs. John, 228 
Puberty ordeals, 93 
Pueblo Indians, 100, 175, 198, 203, 204, 
206, 280, 282, 288, 299 
music, 291, 297, 299-300 
Pumpkins, 7 
Purification methods, 101, 113 
Purity, necessity of, 96, 98, 99, 115 
Pushetonequa, Charles, dancer, 282 
Frank, dancer, 282 


Quakers, relation to Indians, 78 

Qualla Cherokee Reservation, 228, 268, 
269 

Quapaw Indians, 195 

Quavering, women’s feast, 177 


Raben, Joseph, 230, 248 

Radin, Paul, 5, 10 

Rain associations, 271, 282, 300 

Rameau, Jean Phillipe, 287 

Randle, Martha Champion, 3, 67, 228, 
248, 296, 299 

Rasp, wood, 199 

Rattle box, 57, 58, 60 

Rattles, bark cylinder, 69, 132, 133, 176 

dancers’, 14 (fig.), 18, 22 (fig.), 24, 

25, 29, 36, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 62, 
64, 66, 67, 71, 72, 75, 77, 128, 131, 
134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 140, 148, 
149, 151, 174, 182, 183, 187, 189, 
191, 193, 195, 196, 198, 200, 202, 
204, 206, 232, 238, 240, 255, 256, 
268, 269, 270, 272, 274, 275, 276, 
277, 300 


gourd and pumpkin, 7, 16, 34, 55, 
Bi pntl ty lou. beat 132, 164, ‘v73, 
180, 183, 187, 188, 190, 193, 197, 
199, 203, 278 
horn, 7, 13, 14 ' (fig.), .15,° 16, 22 
(fig.), 34, ar 46, 55, 60, 67, 69, 
20; 131, ‘tgs 136, 151, 173, 176, 
202, 279, 281 
mud turtle, 7, 44, 51, 176, 270, 281 
squash, 275 
Rattlesnakes, 81 
Raven, celestial being, 64, 180, 189, 195, 
’200, 202, 204 
skin, worn by high priest, 200 
wing, 203 
Red eagle vision, 175 
Red House, Indian settlement, 29, 36 
Red River, 195 
Red Stone Pipe ceremony, 185 
pitas Mis Seneca man, 15, 16, 17, 


Clara, informant, 4, 121 
Henry, informant, 4 
Sherman, informant, 4, 21 
Rénards (Fox Indians), 268 
Requickening ritual, 197, 205 
Resting-sky, anniversary of cure of, 
21-31, 53, 131, 150 
Seneca man, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 
re Me 39, 43. 45, 49, 50, "54, 121, 
Rhodes, Willard, 291 
Ridicule, 2 sanction, 138, 141-144, 148, 


See also Eagle Dance, speeches. 
Rite of Personal Chant, 103 
Robin social dance, 267 
Roc myth, 174, 175, 176, 179, 184, 185, 
200, 203, 210 
Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences, 


3 
Rock Island, Ill., 184 
Roediger, Virginia M., 270 
Rum, trade in, 170 
Rush Rhees Library, 
Rochester, 3 


University of 


Sachs, Dr. Curt, 228, 289, 298 
Sacrifices and eagle trapping, 91-101 
St. Lawrence Valley, 103, 158 
Sanctions, ritual, 196 
See also Ridicule. 
San Ildefonso Eagle Dance songs, 228, 
271, 296 
San Juan Pipe Dance, 271 
Sanpoil Indians, 175 
Sapir, Edward, 2, 3, 5, 9 
Sarsi Indians, 188 
Sauk Indians, 171, 175, 183, 184, 268, 
272, 279, 287, 299 
Saulteaux Indians, 186, 188 
Scaffolds, 194 
Scales, musical, 250-253, 263, 
288-289, 295, 297-298 


266-267, 


INDEX 


Scalp Dance, 67, 76, 109, 180, 200, 269, 

270, 280, 287 
See also Hagle Dance. 

Scalp records, 33, 106 

Scalps, 105, 110, 111 

Scaroyady, Iroquois chief, 160, 162 

Schuyler, David, 158 

Scrogg, ig Henan, informant, 4, 57, 
10 


Seneca, Ike, Seneca man, 95 
Newtown, 3, 81 
Seneca Eagle Dance, 232-239, 248, 284, 
285-286 
at Coldspring on Allegheny River, 
13-54, 73, 84 
at Tonawanda, 54-68 
Seneca Indians, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 24, 35, 36, 
40, 42, 48, 49, 52, 68, 70, 72, 73, 
74, 75, 76, 78, 86, 87, 88, 91, 93, 
97, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 108, 
109, 110, 112, 113, 114, 116, 118, 
119, 120, 123, 131, 132, 133, 134, 
141, 142, 143, 144, 148, 151, 157, 
160, 161, 162, 169, 170, 171, 172, 
175, 184, 195, 201, 203, 207, 209, 
228, 229, 232, 233, 235 (fig.), 236 
(music), 237 (dance pattern), 
239, 248, 256, 262, 263, 264, 265, 
266, 267, 279, 284 
language, preservation of, 6, 7, 12, 
Al 


relations with Whites, 6, 160 
Reservations, 68, 73, 229 
Seneca Lake, 108 
Sequoya, Indian chief, 170 
Serpents, legends about, 94-95, 202 
Setzler, Frank M., 300 
Seven Sisters, sorcerers, 93 
Shada’ge’-a-’, Indian deity, 57, 60, 93, 
97, 98, 99, 101 
Shaking-a-bird’s-tail, or Scalp Dance, 76 
esa Paes: Tonawanda Eagle Dance, 


Shamans, 185, 194, 274, 278 

Shanks, Bob (Indian singer), 3, 4, 67, 68, 
265, 266, 300 

Sharpening-a-stick Dance, 44 

Shawnee Indians, 2, 87, 100, 104, 105, 
159, 160, 167, 168, 171, 175, 194, 
199, 201, 203, 204, 209, 279, 301 

Ble Baye ane Nae) Seneca woman, 

Shoshone Indians, 175, 283 

Shuswap Indians, 175 

Siblings, 139 

Sibs, exogamous, 138, 142, 143 

Silver, 170 

Silverheels grave site, 134 

Singer, First, dance official, 14, 22, 23, 
34, 55, 56, 57, 60, 67, 71, 136, 144, 
151, 152, 230, 231 

Singer, Second, dance official, 14, 22, 23, 
24, 25, 60, 71, 136, 152, 230, 231 

Singers, dance officials, 14, 21, 22, 23, 25, 
26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 34, 38, 52, 55, 
56, 59, 62, 64, 111, 133, 135, 140, 
141, 148, 151, 152, 162, 174, 179, 


321 


Singers, dance officials—Continued 
181, 183, 185, 190, 198, 204, 230, 
231, 239 (music), 240 (music), 
241 (music), 242 (music), 268, 
275, 276, 281 
Sioux Dance, 103, 107, 109 
Sioux Indians, 104, 157, 162, 171, 178, 
182, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 209, 
270, 287 
Teton, 179, 283, 298, 301 
Six Nations, 104, 159, 160, 161, 165, 166, 
167, 168, 169, 177, 202, 209, 228, 
233, 234 (figs.), 239, 281 
Meeting, 42, 48, 47, 51 
Religious Councils, 48 
Reserve, 3, 11, 80, 95, 228, 229, 230, 
233, 248, 281 
Eagle Dance at, 73-74, 75 
“Skin-beating’”’ Dance, 177 
Skinner, Alanson, 186, 187, 191, 192, 
200, 274, 278, 283 
Skunks, pet, 44 
Skye, Chief Solon, informant, 4 
Howard, informant, 4, 230 
Jake, 230 
Marvin, 230-231, 235 (fig.) 
Simeon, informant, 4 
Sky-Eagle, 94 
See also Dew Eagle. 
Slavery, 171, 172 
Smith, Erminnie A., 79, 157 
Ernest, Seneca draftsman, 3, 87, 
97, 152 
Smoke, Leroy, 230 
Tom, informant, 73, 248, 266 
Snorer, informant, 8, 15, 26, 29, 30, 31, 
35, 38, 43, 46-49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 
86-87, 96, 99-101, 108, 109, 110, 
111, 112, 115, 116, 130, 133, 135, 
136, 140, 141, 145, 148, 149, 151, 
152 
Snow, Chesley, 41 
Jonas, informant, 4 
Josephine, informant, 4 
Levi, informant, 4, 28 
Sara, 33, 129 
Snow-snakes, 7, 44 
Snyder, Alex, 98 
Societies, mutual aid, 7 
shamanistic, 112 
Society of Faces, 112 
See also False-faces. 
Song leader, 75 
Songs, analysis, 248-268 
comparison 230-231, 236-237, 247— 
248, 267-268, 287-300 
development, 257, 259, 264-267, 
297-298 
formal dance, 288-297 
instrumental pitch and tone, 255 
nuclear composition, 258—259 
patterns, 259-260, 261 (fig.), 262 
(fig.), 263 (fig.) 
personal styles, 264—266 
range, 254-255 
rhapsodic, 256-257, 288 


322 


Songs, analysis—Continued 
rhythmic figures, 255-257, 267 
scale system, 250-253, 266 
structure, 257-260, 267 
texts, 236, 238-247, 264, 274, 296 
tone material, 250-255 
trends of development, 297—298 
See also Eagle Dance songs. 
Sore legs, disease symptom, 27 
Soup, 69, 119 
corn, served to dancers, 20, 30, 34, 
36, 37, 57, 62, 63, 119 
hominy, served to dancers, 55, 57, 
62, 63, 66 
Sour Springs Longhouse, 74, 94, 131, 
229, 232-233 
Southeast, location of survival of Eagle 
ae 268-270, 279-282, 299, 
0 
Southern Cult, 187, 206, 210 
Southwest, location of survival of Eagle 
Dance, 268, 270-271, 282, 285 
Speakers, dance officials, 14, 22, 23, 24, 
25, 29, 32, 34, 36,37, 55, 56, 58, 
60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 71, 72, 
98, 135, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 
174, 202 
Spears, used in dance, 278, 280 
Speck, Frank G., 2, 3, 11, 31, 33, 34, 
35, 36, 73, 74, 80, 94, 131, 200, 
201, 202, 205, 229, 269, 270 
Speeches, ceremonial, 9, 16, 17, 55, 60, 
63-64, 71, 231, 233, 273, 277, 285 
Spier, Leslie, 2, 172 
Spinden, Herbert J., 270 
SP ee prayers to, 15, 18, 21, 24, 
176 


Spiro Mound, 204 

Split-house, father of Hemlocks-lying- 
down, 49 

Sponsor Dance, 37, 116, 134, 135, 136, 
139, 190, 196 

Spring, Hanover, 87 

Squash, 7 

Squat Dance, 76 

Staff, feather, 167 

Standing Deer, Carl, 269 

Starr, Frederick, 4 

Stevens, Fannie, Seneca woman, 51 

Stick, bird-headed, 283 

Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, informant, 8, 
17, 18, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 
38, 42, 45-46, 51, 81, 150 

Straits of Mackinac, 157 

Striking Dance, 162, 206 

Striking pole, 55, 57, 58, 60, 69, 102, 110, 
128, 130, 1382, 134, 135, 136, 150, 
173, 174, 183, 185, 190, 191, 200, 
204, 278, 285 

Striking stick, 14 (fig.), 16, 22 (fig.), 24, 
25, 28, 34, 55, 57, 60, 64, 69, 71, 
76, 79, 128, 130, 132, 133, 134, 
pa 140, 150, 164, 173, 204, 

1 


BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 


[Bull. 156] 


Striking-the-stick Dance, 97, 103, 105, 
107, 108, 109, 110, 133, 162, 163, 
173, 182, 190, 192, 229, 248, 266, 
267, 270, 272, 285-287 
Supernatural Being, 104, 105, 
189, 194, 205, 210 

Circles, 205 

Dance, 104 

Sundown, Peter, 124, 125 

Sunshine, Seneca man, 43, 53 

Susquehanna River, 159 

Swan’s wing, 198 

Swanton, John, 198, 280-281 

Sweetgrass, ceremonial use of, 190, 193, 

194, 197 
Syracuse, N. Y., 75, 79, 88 


Sun, 


Taensa Indians, 281, fig. 30 
Tahamont, Dave, 70 
Takes-in-a-woman, Seneca man, 26, 28 
Tama, Iowa, 268 
Taos Indians, 175 
Tea, use in divination, 70 
Ten, ceremonial number, 174 
Ten Days’ Feast, 8 
Ten Mornings, Seneca man, 24, 25, 26, 
28, 29, 121 
Tennessee River, 279, 301 
Teton heyoka rituals, 282 
Hu’ka rite, 278 
Teton Indians, 284 
Teton River, 279 
Tewa eagle dancers, 270 
Thanksgiving Dance, 102, 103, 287 
Thomas, Chief David, informant, 4 
Thomas, Chief George, 68, 69, 70, 72 
ae George, informant, 68, 69, 70, 
1 


Thomas, George Allison, informant, 68, 
70 


Thompson, Stith., 174 

Thompson Indians, 175 

Three Rivers, Quebec, 93, 158 

Thunder Bird Dance, 282 

Thunder Birds, Supernatural Beings, 
105, 114, 178, 205, 271, 281-283 


Thunderer, Supernatural Being, 104, 
105, 114 


Thuren, Hjalmar, 298 
Thwaites, Reuben Gold, 93, 273, 296 
Timberlake, H., 177, 201, 281 
Tioga River, 105 
Titus, George, 108 
Tixier, Victor, 271, 278 
Tobacco, ceremonial use of, 14, 15, 31, 
BD, Od, DG,-00, CL, 18, hdetiee ee 
92, 94, 95, 96, 116, 119, 121, 123, 
92, 94, 95, 96, 116, 119, 121, 123, 
125, 129, 135, 136, 137, 144, 145- 
js i op ee te BY ey A 
chewing, presented to dancers, 55, 
57, 62, 66, 69, 72, 137 
dish of, 14 (fig.), 22 (fig.) 


INDEX 


Tobacco, ceremonial use of—Continued 
Indian (Nicotiana rustica L.), 34, 
36, 54, 58, 64, 69, 72, 110, 111, 
112, 125, 130, 132, 137, 165, 169, 
173, 203, 204° 274 
prayer, 15, 24, 37, 36, 42, 59-60, 64, 
fe the 125, 134, 135, 145-148, 
174, 176, 231-232, 274-275, 279- 
8 
Tobacco Bag, 193 
Tobacco Dance, 187, 272, 299 
Tobacco-thrower, dance official, 29, 31, 
34, 37, 55, 59, 71, 137, 152 
Tonawanda, Seneca Eagle "Dance at, 
54-68, 72 
Tonawanda Indians, a, 4, d- 126; 233 
legend, 87 
music, 290, 292, 294, 295, 297, 298 
Reservation, 9, 10, 11, 35, 41, 42, 
43, 46, 47, 49, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 
59, 60, 67, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 95, 
96, 97, 108, 105, 107, 112, 113, 
119, 124, 133, 139, 148, 151, 152, 
153, 177, 228, 248, 265 
Tortoises, 202 
Tracy, Edwin S., 275, 287, 2 96 
Trade, 170 
Tradition, historical validity, 153 ff, 163, 
192, 209 
Traditional-Woman’s Dance, 53 
Trait complex, 188, 204, 206, 209 
Trapping, pit, 95, 96, 97, 99-101, 113, 
173; E7b, 176, 
Traumatic eres 121 
Tray, corn-husk, 69, 132, 145, 146 
Trotting Dance, 46 
Trowbridge, 164 
Tula Indians, 197 
Turkey, 82 
feathers, used for fans, 131 
wings, use of, 167 
Turkey, Lucy, informant, 4 
Myron, informant, 4 
Tuscarora Indians, 5, 98, 159, 166 
Twenty, Seneca chief, 46 
Twenty canoes, Seneca man, 42, 134 
Twenty-kettles, Seneca man, 5b, 59, 95, 
103, 124, 125 
Twightwies, Indian tribe, 163 
Two-arrows-flying, Seneca Indian, 16, 
149, 150 
Two Brothers, legend of, 82, 86 


Uinta Ute Indians, 175 
University of Michigan Summer Insti- 
tute of Linguistics, 229 
University of Pennsylvania, 2 
of Rochester, 76 


Van Campen, Moses, 105 
Venison, served at feasts, 107 
Vermilion River, Ohio, 134 
Victory Dance, 200, 201, 270, 280, 287 
Voegelin, Carl, 3, 229 

Erminie, fu 199, 203, 279 
Vulture, 116 

black, 199 

hunting, 82, 83 


323 


Wabash River, 163, 279 
Wa’e’ ie: J (Striking-a-stick Dance), 
1 
192, 


Waloegact (Calumet Dance), 


Walker, J. R., 5 93 
Wallace, A. F. C., 5 
Wampum, 159, 162, 163, 164, 170, 177 
belt, 102, 123, 134, 156, 157, 159 
white, 42, 102, 164 
See also Belt. 
Wands, feather, 16, 18, 24, 29, 77, 131, 
134, 139, 149, 190, 191, 193° 195, 
200, 230, 232, 233, 240, 267, 269, 
270, 277, 281 
Watwa? (peace ’pipe), 189, 275, 276-277 
Wapanowiweni rite, 184 
Wapsipinicon River, 272 
War bundles, 162, 182, 192 
War clubs, 183, 198, 280 
War Dance, 9, 32, 67, 72, 77, 86, 102, 
103, 104-105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 
133, 149, 162, 173, 192, 195, 267, 
268, 277, 278, 282, 284, 287° 
War Eagle, supernatural being, 189, 190 
War pole, 105, 136, 143 
War records, keeping of, 106, 107, 183, 
184 


Morne A. ate and Holder, Preston, 
Warrior, Chauncey, informant, 4, 48, 
51, 84-86, 115, 135 
Geneva, informant, 4 
Warrior’s Feather Dance, 163 
Wash boiler, used for corn soup, 14 
(fig.), 22 (fig.), 30, 34, 55, 70 
Washington, George, 168 
Water Monster, Supernatural Being, 
175 


Watt, Chief Hiram, informant, 4 

Waugh, Fs Wi :35 74, 88-90, 124-125 

Wawa" songs, 228 288, 289, 293 
(music), 298 


Wa’wa-tho’ (Peace Cony): 195 
Wazha’zhe (or Osage), 1 
Weeping, ceremonial, 193, 197, 205 
eye, 210 
Weiser, Conrad, 165, 166 
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthro- 
pological Research, 228 


West, George A., 271-273, 279, 285, 289 
Whistle-blower, Dance official, 174 
Whistles, 81, 130, 182, 173, 192 
bamboo, 132 
eagle wing-bone, 132, 180, 
190, 192, 276, 277 
not used, 69, 132 
White, Alice E., Seneca woman, 31, 32 
Clarence, 133 
Clayton C., 31, 32 
Dr. Leslie A., 228 
Reuben, Seneca Indian, 101 
Wesley, informant, 4 
White Buffalo Dance, 185 
White Dog, Supernatural Being, 146 
White Eagle, Chief, 48 


188, 


324 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 156) 


White Woman of the Genesee, 48 
See also Mary Jemison. 

Whites, adoption into clans, 33 

Whoop, start of songs, 151 

Whooper, dance official, 22, 23, 24, 25 
26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 45, 55, 60, 67 
71, 139, 149, 151, 174, 179, 201 
204, 233 

Wade ae use of, 180, 190, 191, 193 


Wind and Thunder, song to, 43 

Winged Calumet, 268-284 

Wings, see name of bird. 

Winnebago Indians, 114, 175, 176, 183 
184, 187, 192, 268, 272, 273, 274 


fig. 30 
Wissler, Clark, 2, 172, 174, 186, 187, 188 
274, 282-284 
Witthoft, John, 228 
Women, duties of, 7 
part in rituals, 196, 197, 198, 203 
274, 283 


Women’s Dance, 266, 268-270 
Women’s Shuffle Dance, 267 


Woodeater, informant, 8, 15, 16, 17, 18, 
19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 29, 31, 34, 
38, 40-43, 45, 47, 48, 53, 92, 108, 
114, 116, 118, 119, 122, 124, 1386, 


142, 145, 146, 149 
,| Woodpecker, beliefs regarding, 180, 191 
; Celestial Being, 189, 210 


head, ceremonial use of, 196 
; Pileated, 195, 205 
Woodworkers, 52 
Wright, Rev. Asher, 47 
Laura, 3, 108 
Wyandot Indians, 279 


,| Yale Graduate School, 2, 9 
Yankee Spring, informant, 95, 117 


,| Yankton Indians, 283 


Yellowstone River, 279 

Young Eagle Society Bundle, 180 

Yuchi Indians, 199, fig. 30, 299 

Zeisberger, David, 104, 134, 159, 164, 
170, 203 


Zuni Indians, 176 


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